


The Skeletons Rattle in Our Closets (and we just want to sleep)

by megacinnamonpeaches



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Cryptic fuckery, Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder, F/F, M/M, Masked men in the woods, Medication, Multi, Self-Harm, Suicide, The Operator stands in one place, The Operator's mind games, Tim is tired, Violence, ill add tags as i go, mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16924692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megacinnamonpeaches/pseuds/megacinnamonpeaches
Summary: For Jess, it's like when you wake up from a nap without the memory of falling asleep. Her mouth tastes sour, nothing is clear, and there's shadows in every corner. What better way to find answers than to hunt them down yourself?Inspired by doritofalls on tumblr"ideal marble hornets continuation: jessica becomes the protagonist while she starts to look for the truth about whatever happened she can’t recall. while trying to confront her demons, she ends up p much finding actual demons.tim shows up again and is very tired.jay ends up being not-dead somehow, but stuck in his “skully” personality. his motivations aren’t clear, but he’s seemingly protective of tim and jessica. he also has a weird obsession with cameras and tim’s “masky” personality.the operator is still standing in one place."





	1. Sleep Intertia - Mandark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where does the time go   
> how much time do we have left   
> why do we forget   
> when we   
> wake up 

Jess was doing fine.

She was getting better.

It had taken months. Years. She had begun to keep track of time, and with no new blank spots in her memory to speak of, that became easy to do. 

The medication was mostly to thank for her slow recovery. Coupled with strong sleeping pills, she was functional enough to have a routine. A routine that alloted time to work, and that enabled her to pay for the therapy sessions she was coming to need less and less. 

Jess was doing fine. Getting better.

The numbness was what made that difficult.

Tim had mentioned side effects of the medication, but this hadn’t been one of them. The sleeping pills were not to blame either- not that she’d be able to go back to sleeping without them if that were the case. Jess’s waking world was one of muted colors and dampened emotions. Her therapist had diagnosed her with chronic depression.

It was easier to sleep away her free time anyways. She had no interest in her former hobbies. The only thing close to friends she had were the coworkers she managed idle chit chat with.

Jess had real friends once.

Their names were only known to her because of the untouched contacts in her phone. Pictures of them were stored away in her gallery; precious reminanents of a brighter time. Their faces were

clear, so much unlike the blurry blobs scattered through what memories she did have of the far-gone past. Although she could not place names to faces, it was something to hold onto.

Aside from her parents, the only person she talked to outside of work was Tim. Even then, Jess only called when she absolutely needed to, believing it best to leave him be. Although, they had known each other before these numb years, hadn’t they? Had they been friends?  

For months now, something had been building up inside of her. She had been too reluctant to risk breaking the hazy peace her life provided. Years ago, Jess would have marched down to the gates of hell and demanded to speak with the king himself before becoming contempt with blissful ignorance. Now she barely had the energy to sit through a single episode of trashy reality television.

The day enough of that something had built up underneath her skin, pins and needles buzzed throughout her body. She was staring at her ceiling after finishing a phone call with her father. The static behind her eyelids swam across her ceiling in the darkness.

Maybe she could find her old friends…

Jess had tried. Sorting through missing poster after missing poster of names that teased the tip of her tongue had yielded no results. She had long since lost the motivation to continue sifting through the little she could find. Unremarkable cold cases from almost a decade in the past turned up little to sift through. A few MySpace accounts that did not match the faces in her phone, if anything. 

Now she could remember one new name. One she hadn’t bothered to write into her phone- but he had been over so much. To see Amy. Amy. 

Jess sat up in her bed. Alex Kraelie. Amy’s boyfriend. He was filming something when her memories first became spotty. There had been a gun involved, hadn’t there? And a man named Jay.

Perhaps…. Perhaps it would be best to start at the beginning? During that bright, happy time teasing from the back of her tepid fever brain? 

Blinking heavily, Jess unlocked her phone. Google came next. 

_ Alex Kralie| _

The first result dispelled the nameless energy keeping her awake. Nervous eyes flicked from the blinking cursor to the autofill suggestion.

_ Alex Kralie  _ Marble Hornets.

Jess pressed search. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	2. The Strangest Things - Radical Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cold spreads through the house  
> It bites my ears, I can't feel my hands or feet and I'm too scared to sleep  
> And now the ghosts are on the porch  
> Got knives in hand, oh no, I think I've seen this before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm reforminig the format of this story. By deleting the chapters I deleted the reviews on them- and I forgot to screenshot them beforehand. I'm mad at myself for it- its a huge blow. You were all so thoughtful on each chapter. I hope to see more reviews in the future though. You all have been so kind and supportive regardless. Thank you <3
> 
> Here's the playlist for the story:
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=ZOYcV6n5RmOMusjiLSb9gQ

If Jess learned anything from the twelve hours she spent exploring Marble Hornets and everything connected with it, it was that Tim did not deserve to be drawn back into this.  
  
Tim was a kind man. He had given everything he had left to help and…. Not matter what, she could not ring herself to blame him. Even if he was the source, he had helped her too.  
  
If anything she had learned anything aside from that, it was that if she was going to look into this any further, Jess was better off leaving evidence. At least that there would be leads.  
  
Reading through Jay’s old tweets sent chills down her spine. His idea to seek help where he could get it hadn’t been a bad one. Jess decided it best to create a Twitter. EnochAlive seemed fitting. She had debated whether or not it was appropriate to spite totheark before typing it. Although victim themselves, seeing them carry her unconscious body out of a hotel left her just a little miffed.

 

* * *

 

 _  
_ _  
__Lockey_ _  
__@EnochAlive_ _  
__Hello everyone, I’ve exhausted all of the resources I could find connected to Marble Hornets. Does anyone else have tips to finding more? I loved that web series- haha!_ _  
__10:35 AM - August 3, 2018_

 

 

* * *

  
  
Jay’s Twitter was still up and inactive, which it would likely remain.  
  
Jess didn’t want to think about that.  
  
(She followed it anyways).  
  
Despite completely lacking sleep after staring at the screen of her phone for hours, Jess finally felt alive. She had called into work to take an abrupt sick day. Now she was typing out what she knew on a Google Doc. Memories could be forgotten, and pages could be burned, but this was something that could be easily recovered.  
  
_Alex Kralie - Dead - killed by Tim. Do not trust._ _  
__  
__Killed Seth, Sarah, Amy, Jay, and possibly Amy. (+Beardy/White Shirt)_ _  
__  
_ _  
__Tim Wright- Alive - trust, helpful_ _  
__  
__Killed Alex_ _  
__  
_ _  
__Jay Merrick_ |  
  
  
Bile rose up in Jess’ throat. Was that all her friends had been reduced to? Names on a screen? That’s how it had been for years now, but with context applied and emotions finally rising to the surface…  
  
Jess wiped her eyes and inhaled through her nose. She was fine. She would stay fine. Jay’s fate had been unfair, but she wouldn’t get in as deep. She wouldn’t be reckless. Not that reckless.  
  
(If she locked all of her doors and windows, it was only to soothe future paranoia. Not that the past twelve hours of watching her own personal horror movie had caused her any. None at all.)  
  
Forgoing sprawling openly across her mattress, Jess had burrowed under her piles of hand-knit quilts (old gifts from Brian, she now remembered). Not even that was comforting enough. She pulled another blanket over her face, childishly hoping it would keep shadows from contorting in her peripherals. It reminded her of the childhood nights spent playing her gameboy under suffocating covers. Now her own hot breath was a comfort.  
  
Her need for four blankets in August was a bit much, even for someone with anemia.  
  
Jess stared at her unblinking screen. If she keeped staring, maybe the words would be written out for her.

 

 _Jay Merrick_ |

  
  
She could not afford denial.

  
  
_Jay Merrick - dead - killed by Alex. Good intentions, bad end_ _  
__results._ _  
__  
_

  
Both Alex and Jay came to mind as she typed that line. Hell was a road paved with good intentions.  


  
_Brian Thomas - dead_ |

 

  
Oh. Right.

  
_  
__Tim Wright- Alive - trust, helpful_ _  
__Killed Alex, killed “Hoodie” before knowing it was Brian_ _  
__Do NOT trust "Masky" (alt identity?)_

  
Maybe it would be easier to start smaller?

  
  
_Amy Walters - missing - Alex’s (ex?)girlfriend_ _  
  
_

_Seth_ |

 

Maybe not.  


  
_Sarah Wilson_ |

_Sarah Davis?|_

 

 

She scowled at the screen.

 

 

_Sarah Reid|_

 

 

Jess closed document and switched to her gallery. She had stashed her past under a folder markered Friends, a title that now made her shutter.  
  
The folder was mostly filled with pictures of Seth and Sarah- snapshots of their heads turned away while they smiled at something. Seth with his dog, Amy with cucumbers on her eyes, Brian asleep under a desk, a video of Tim playing a ukulele, Alex-  
  
Jess stuffed her phone underneath her pillow and rolled onto her stomach. Her oppressive cocoon was the only thing keeping her from running. Hating a dead man would do no good. Anger had not done Jay any good.  
  
She was alone.  
  
She was safe.  
  
Jess slipped out of bed and into the shower. The past hours had woken her from her sleepy stupor, but she was still fighting off the last tendrils of weariness that clung on. She all but melted under the weak pressure her showerhead offered. How had she not realized how much she needed to feel warmth?  
  
It was already approaching noon, so she fixed herself up a breakfast burrito and curled up on the sofa with her laptop. Her mound of sheets were piled over her and several tabs were open above the search bar, most of them rabbithole reddit forums. Jess took a long sip from her two liter bottle of soda before tucking it back at her hip. She was going to be there a while.  
  
  
_Sarah Reid_ _  
__Woman with dark hair_ _  
__Killed by Alex?_ _  
__Potential third member of totheark (according to forum discussions)_ _  
__Close friend._ | _  
_  
  
Jess switched over to the YouTube. Her own tired face stared back at her, frozen in time. She was smiling at Tim, but she seemed dazed. On another tab, a post on Jay’s old MySpace was pulled up- some poem about the bags under the subject’s eyes being violets blooming. Jess’s own eye bags were closer to bruises.  
  
Still, Jess did feel like a walking corpse weighed down by dead flowers. Alex or Brian could have- almost- killed her. If circumstances were different, she might have been one of the masked people running through the woods, dependent on pills to stay in their own minds.  
  
She was already one of those things.  
  
Cold fingers buried into the sides of her temples. It was about time for one of her doses. After rewinding the video a few more times and jotting down a few more details, she swallowed a few pills with a mouthful of soda.  
  
Jess was still in the bathroom when her phone buzzed. Tim’s name illuminated her screen.  
  
  
_Tim W._ _  
__2:45 PM:_ _  
__Hey jess, how are you doing? Is it alright if i come over?_ _  
_  
  
She frowned at her screen, brows furrowing. Had he somehow found out about her research or had something happened?  
_  
_ _  
__You_ _  
__2:46 PM:_ _  
__Of course! You good TIm? :)_ _  
__  
_ _  
__Tim W_ _  
__2:46 PM:_ _  
__everything is fine. I just wanted to check in._  
  
  
Tim knew about the key under the matt. A part of her wished he didn’t. She would move it before he came, citing some old horror movie as a source for her paranoia. Tim  
  
Not that she didn’t trust him.  
  
It was only that some of his missing memories were seen through the eyes of a mask.  
  
The strange energy had returned to Jess, enabling her to keep moving. She remained exhausted despite herself. Hysterical energy did not care about the all-nighter she had pulled.  
  
The smile she wore as she greeted Tim was partially from that hysteria.  
  
Tim’s stocky form took up her doorway. He was avoiding eye contact, and he was holding firmly onto the satchel at his side, but he seemed… at ease.  
  
“Hey, Tim,” Jess said.  
  
“Jess," he said.  
  
Jess managed one of her old, soft smiles and gestured for him to come it. “Come on in, ah, I can make you a burrito if you want one?” Her front door lead into her kitchen, and she still had ingredients left anyways.  
  
Tim’s head tilted down. “If it’s not a bother, sure. Thank you.”  
  
Jess nodded and returned to her kitchen while Tim padded over to rickety wooden table. The satchel he was holding remained close to his hip. He was watching her as she piled ingredients into her arms.  
  
“Is there anything you wanted to talk about?” Jess asked, ignoring his staring. Was he watching her for tells? Lapses in thought, twitches, the spontaneous desire to kill him?  
  
Had he always been doing that?  
  
“Ah, just figured I’d stop by. Like I said. I actually came to bring you something.” Jess could hear TIm rummage through his bag. Were Jay’s knife and camera still in there?  
  
Jess glanced up from the eggs she was whisking. Tim cradled a small wooden box in his burly hands. “I usually keep this in my car, but I figured you’d find better use of it,” Tim said.  
  
Jess pushed the mixing bowl away from the edge of the counter before coming to inspect the gift. The box was visibly battered. She took it gently from his hands and opened it slowly.  
  
It was full of pictures.  
  
Tim still did not meet her eyes. “S’not like I’m gonna need it. I’m moving again and I just.... Wanted to give you a parting gift, I guess.”  
  
“Thank you,” Jess said, blinking at Tim. She felt the same mixture of confusion and gratitude she had when he had helped her settle into her new life. Her expression was probably the same dazed one she held back then.  
  
Jess set the box down on her coffee table and returned to making Tim’s burrito. “Mushrooms?” she asked him, and he nodded.  
  
As Tim slowly ate his meal, she watched him with the same intent he had her. Everytime she blinked she could see him leaning against the wall in that campus, a portrait of bloody chiaroscuro. The image was leaden on her heart.  
  
“So where are you moving to?” Jess finally asked.  
  
Tim took a large bite of the burrito and chewed in for what was probably longer than necessary. He swallowed thoroughly before answering. “North. Up where Jay moved to.”  
  
Jay’s corpse flashed in her mind. Curled in on himself, pages scattered underneath him like a nest of leaves…. She struggled to hide her wince. “How is he, by the way? I haven’t heard from him in a few years.”  
  
“Better than how you probably remember him,” Tim said. If she wasn’t paying such close attention to him, she would have missed the bitter edge to his voice.  
  
“That’s great then,” Jess said. The farther away he was from Alabama, the better.  
  
He knew the shadow over the state better than Jess did. Although they both knew the ghosts on a personal level  
  
Tim smiled ruefully. His thick beard seemed unmanaged, she noticed. “It’ll be nice to see him again.”

* * *

 

  
_Love Hunter_ _  
_ _@Lambydance_ _  
_ _@EnochAlive Explore Rosswood for yourself. Start up your own investigation if you want._ _  
_ _4:01 PM - August 3, 2018_

 _  
_ _Dear Hunter_ _  
_ _@Lambydance_ _  
_ _@EnochAlive The fandom has been as dead as Jay’s character. It’s always nice to see new members trying to contribute._ _  
_ _4:03 PM - August 3, 2018_

 

 

* * *

 

Tim left unceremoniously in a beat-up car. Naturally, the first thing Jess did after it disappeared down the street was lock the door and and sit on the couch with her new gift.  
  
The pictures were in two neat stacks. In red marker, dates had been written on the blank space polaroid film offered. Jess felt an odd sense of relief when she noticed that.  
  
With the pictures spread out over her coffee table, Jess began sifting through the mounds. Towards the top were the most recent photos, from the August of 2006. Alex was asleep in his car, with one of Brian’s knitted quilts over him. Jess subconsciously pulled the one on her shoulders closer.  
  
Jess had to remind herself that Brian was dead because of Alex.  
  
A good portion of the stack was of Brian asleep in random places. Under a desk, against Tim, across Alex’s back while he was being carried fireman style… Jess smiled. Jay was in a few here and there, but he hung around Alex in all of them. He had been an introverted guy, right? Not the type to go after his only friend with a knife in his own home at all.  
  
There were a few blurry pictures to squint at. In one, Seth was pushing Brian into a lake. In another, Amy was catching Alex by surprise while he frantically turned away. Jess touched the face of her former roommate and sighed deeply.  
  
Jess hung onto the pictures of Seth and Sarah the longest. Without knowing why, she began to sort them into their own pile. Brian and Sarah were kissing with exaggerated expressions while Seth gagged in the corner. The caption read “star-crossed lovers of Marble Hornets, torn apart by life” with a crudely drawn smiley face beside it. Beneath that was a picture of Jess sitting on a hill talking to Sarah. Their hair was blown up by the wind, and their faces were glowing in the light. “My girls,” it read.  
  
Jess bit down on her lip. She was beginning to suspect something.  
  
Ignoring the other pictures, Jess gathered every polaroid displaying the ghosts of Sarah and Seth. Her hands began shaking. In the last photo, Seth was holding the camera while she and Sarah smirked into it. Her own face was decorated with Sarah’s purple lipstick while Seth’s mouth had similar smears over it.  
  
Oh.  
  
They had been her Sarah and her Seth.  
  
Jess drew her knees up to her chest, desperate to tether herself down somehow. They had been hers and she had been theirs. How many nights did she not remember? Did they have a restaurants they frequented? Did they drive Amy out of the house with overplayed displays of affection? Had she been the littlest spoon, or the center of a sandwich wedged between two warm bodies?  
  
Seth’s dog had been named Lola. Jess remembered that.  
  
Jess pushed the images of her late partners both out of her head, and to the opposite side of the coffee table. Her stomach began to twist into knots that spread up into her throat. There was a name on the box that now stood out to her, plainly etched into the bottom corner. Seth.  
  
Remembering didn’t hurt. Knowing she had forgotten did.  
  
_Fuck_ . She didn't need this right now. The weight of her situation had finally begun to sink in. This added layers. Bittersweetness turned into a sucker punch to the gut. Soon she’d be coughing up blood from the impact.  
  
Was she still in love with them? That was no easier to discern than whether or not she felt thankful for Tim and Brian’s alter egos efforts in trying save her or if she resented them for making those missing years more confusing. They didn’t deserve to die. Seth and Sarah didn't either- Alex “I shot Jay in cold blood” Kralie’s good intentions be damned.  
  
Second-hand feelings for them at best, numbness at worst. That was Jess’ reality.  
  
A familiar one at that.  
  
_(“The potential third member of totheark has to be either Sarah or Seth! We don't know if they’re dead or alive,” says the text on her computer screen.)_  
  
Jess stared down at the final photo in her hands. It was the cast and crew of Alex Kraelie’s Marble Hornets gathered together in front of the gazebo. She was probably the one who had taken the picture. Jess could imagine Tim picking through the photos with a fine-toothed comb, still trying to protect her years later, but even he was fallible.  
  
In the treeline, nestled in the shadows, a white shape was looking onwards. Jess could imagine a smile on the bastard’s blank slate of q face.  
  
“Siri,” she rasped. Her phone came alive on the cushion behind her head. “Give me directions to Rosswood Park, Alabama.”

 

* * *

 

 _Lockey_ _  
_ _@EnochAlive_ _  
_ _I’m going to be live streaming at 2pm CST on the 4th while I explore Rosswood. I just made the YT channel._ _  
_ _5 AM - August 4, 2018_

 

* * *

  
  
Jess glanced at her phone each time it listed off directions. Her case was rose gold plastic covered in pictures of fairy Pokemon. It had been a treat to herself a few paychecks ago. Now it felt silly.  
  
_“Turn left, and your destination will be on the right-”_  
  
The day was a bright, hot one. Air was distorting above the road while the sun blazed down from a cloudless sky. Jess had the heat on fullblast and her windows tightly shut.  
  
Parking her car in the empty lot felt akin to returning home after several years away. She could do this. Facing the other victims of an eldritch monster with a body count wasn't too daunting, right?  
  
Something hard settled in Jess’s stomach as she stepped out of the car. Despite the dry sunny weather, shadows settled in the treeline, like forlorn tendrils beckoning her forward. Jess gritted her teeth, squared her shoulders, and held her chin high. If there was no room for denial, then there was no room to shy away from the situation. With her phone one hand, and a baseball bat in the other, she stepped towards the woods. The bag on her shoulders rattled faintly.  
  
If mind is put over matter, then nothing will matter.  
  
Jess had her stream ready to go. She had already collected a few followers that taken interest to her on Twitter. As soon as she clicked the button to start, a few names popped up.  
  
Jess swallowed deeply and drew in a long breath. “Hey guys, it’s Lockey,” she said in a voice deeper than her own. There was a front to uphold after all. “I’m in Rosswood- I already passed the sign, though I’m sure you want proof of that, um… I’m going to that building where Alex tried to shoot Jess and Jay.”  
  
Fallen leaves crunched under her feet as she entered the treeline. A few questions appeared in the chat box _. “Do you live in Alabama?” “Do you have a gun?” “Do you have a weapon?” “Is Enoch your last name, lol?”_ _  
_ _  
_ Jess held up her baseball bat in front of the camera’s lense. “Erm, I live I state over,” she lied. “And no, I just thought it fit the theme. You can call me Lockey, though.”  
  
She veered deeper inwards, the woods slowly consuming her. Branches snagged on her clothes. She hissed when she heard the sound of tearing.  
  
“I think it’s a bit deeper in,” Jess muttered. She eyed up the stream. “And no, I’m not going to the tunnel today.”  
  
Something was off. Jess kept her head held high, but that didn't banish her unease. Branches continued to catch her arms like curling fingers. The weight in her stomach expanded when she realized that the birds had stopped singing. Silence left room for so much to happen.  
  
Jess managed to control her breathing as she came upon the building. She was alone. She was safe. The wood’s color had faded away with time and weather, but the memories stood out. Tim’s masked face might as well have been watching her from the windows.  
  
Jess paid a glance at her phone screen. _“Holy shit she’s actually there!” “Find the bullet hole!”_ _  
_  
Looking up at the sky, the sun was just past its zenith. Jess flipped up her hood and climbed inside. Her hesitant steps made no noise, yet the bag on her shoulders felt as heavy as whatever had curled up in her stomach.  
  
“Here we are,” Jess said aloud. Taking a seat against a stack of rotting planks of wood, she fanned out the pictures around her. She ignored the stream for a moment as she set down Seth’s box. Her phone ended up propped against it, angled away from her face.  
  
“Your move,” she told to the camera. Somewhere, Jess imagined one of two possible figures watching her through a screen. The thing in the woods couldn't have not sensed her. She had to force its hand if she wanted any other answers.  
  
Jess set her hands on her crossed legs. The heavy weight pooling in her stomach had migrated to Jess’s eyes. She fluttered them relentlessly, struggling the fight of the sudden exhaustion that was swallowing her whole. Jess’s head bobbed up and down as it came and went, but her mind was already asleep. The itch in her throat clawed at the back of her mouth as her eyes fell shut.  
  
Static lulled her to sleep.

 

* * *

 

The moment Jess opened her eyes, she was hacking out her lungs. Desperate fingers clawed at the ground to find an anchor or a raft. She could feel splinters digging in. It was dark- so dark- and where were the photos?  
  
Jess reached for Seth’s box in the dark but found only empty space. Had she kicked it away in her sleep? A breeze could have easily blown away the polaroids-  
  
Shapes formed in the darkness where they hadn't been before. Jess’ eyes had adjusted. She was able to rise onto shaky feet and look around. The stars visible through the holes in the ceiling spoke of lost hours.  
  
Jess thanked God when she felt her industrial flashlight against her back, and from what she could tell she had woken up in the same spot she had fallen asleep in. With a few movements light flooded the room.  
  
Without even a pause to consider searching the building, Jess fled. Her feet carried her far through Rosswood while the weight was burned away by fire and adrenaline. She was aware of the clawing branches whipping against her, but she didn't feel a single cut. Jess wasn't alone. She wasn't safe.  
  
South- south. She was running towards the south parking lot. It was a miracle no rock caught her frantic feet. Soil was being torn up as she fled for her life. Jess  blindly spearheaded her way through the dark even as her bounds became clumsy. Metal was a rich taste in her mouth.  
  
Daylight hit Jess’ eyes when she broke the treeline. The impact of the sun and the pain of lactic acid sent her tumbling across the field. What was left of her sweatshirt flew off of her in tatters.  
  
Jess heaved into the grass, blood, breakfast, and all. It all tasted like pennies. Hot, hot pennies. A thousand lambs were screaming around her. As she worked her battered body up onto her elbows, the cacophony fell into a simple piercing ring. Jess gagged and the last chunky bits of drool dribbled past her shredded lips. Pain was rapidly setting in.  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” Jess swallowed. White-knuckled hands dropped the baseball bat she hadn’t noticed still in her possession. Jess had to pry her fingers out of position they were locked in.  
  
Her car was close enough to limp to. Heart pulsating in her throat as Rosswood disappeared from her rearview mirror, Jess drove without stopping. It didn’t matter that her phone was missing. It didn’t matter that she could still taste her own blood and that hunger pangs forced her to tear up. What mattered was getting home and locking the doors.  
  
What else could she do? Call the police and tell them someone was in the park? “Bullshit ,” Jess whispered. The only thing that she could do was hope her plan had still worked.  
  
Later that night, Jess learned that she had been gone for two days. Her boss had emailed her about unapproved absences and given her a strict warning about her behaviour. She collapsed into her bed after typing out a long apology.  
  
_(“Family emergency,” she lied. “It’s too personal to go into.”)_  
  
Jess laid in a pool of her own cold sweat. Her trembling fingers grasped at damp arms. Her bed was a boat drifting across an ocean of static. If there was no room to shy away from the situation, then there was no room to deny her fear. Jess was terrified out of her mind- and who wouldn’t be? The demons she was searching for had driven what was left of her friends to delusion and murder.  
  
Jess was already missing a chunk of time. Being alone meant she’d risk forgetting.  
  
What good had that done Tim?

 

* * *

 

( _‘The shadows under your eyes_ _  
_ _They bloom like violets_ _  
_ _Dark and beautiful,’_ _  
_ _A younger Jay Merrick hair the color of red Kool Aid leered at the camera, representing the epitome of high school goth fashion. His blue eyes stood out under shaggy bangs. The picture was dated 2003._ )

 

* * *

 

“Trauma is not beautiful,” Jess whispered to herself. Picking up the burner cell she had bought on her way home, Jess dialed in a number from memory. He answered after one ring.  
  
Tim didn’t deserve to be dragged back into this.  
  
“Hello?” Tim’s voice rasped, rising at the end.  
  
“Tim, it’s me,” Jess said. In her mind's eye she was on the border into a dark forest, teetering in where she should have been backing away. ”I know."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure do love editing in spacers from mobile.
> 
> I don’t know if Wannabe Goth Teenage Jay has a backstory but it my favorite trope.  
> The line about the violets is inspired by this stanza from Belissa Escobedo and Rhiannon McGavin’s poem “Rape Joke.” It gave me the impression that hey! Trauma isn’t something to be glorified. I didn’t want to use the actual poem because it wasn’t related to poem’s message (“Stop trying to relate to us, it’s suffocating. Rape culture is a serious issue.”) so I didn’t want to misrepresent it 
> 
> ‘You know, those poets will tell you,  
> "Violets are growing in the shadows under your eyes."  
> They're not violets. It's skin. I know it's skin. It's good skin.  
> It's gonna be skin regardless of what metaphors you attach to it.’
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: I fixed Sarah's surname twice. It's Reid, not Davis or Wilson.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	3. Restoration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walk into heaven.

_[The video opens with a looped shot of a thunderstorm rolling in, heavily sped up. The entire screen in tinted red. Words flicker in.]_ __  
__  
_“Flee to the ark.”_ __  
__  
_[The scene changes, although still tinted red. A swollen stream is depicted flowing along its course. The small boat riding it, paper and clearly made by a child, struggles to stay afloat before being swept away.]_ __  
__  
_“You can’t stay afloat forever.”_ __  
__  
_[The thunderclouds roll back in, only to be drawn back by an unseen force.]_ __  
__  
_“This cannot be reversed.”_ __  
__  
_[The red fades into the black, and the text fades along with it. Written in red, a new message appears.]_ __  
__  
_“Come home to us, Enoch.”_ __  
__  
_[The red text in replaced by a glitching white.]_ __  
__  
_“Come home to us,_ __  
__  
__  
__Q̵̡̢̞͓̝̟͈͉̲̰̬̩̾̇̈́̉̚͘͜Z̴̨̛͎͇̠̤͇̳͉̪͖̐̈̓̍̐̌̏̃͐͝͠W̶̰̠͚͍͇̙̿͑͑̋”  
  
  


 


	4. Dirty Night Clowns - Chris Garneau

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let them be buried, buried alive  
> In their suits, in their ties  
> Trees to shade the moves that they made  
> In their suits, in their ties  
> Let them be buried, buried alive  
> In their suits, in their ties  
> You're safe here, now you're in the clear  
> Now we'll eat soup and apple pies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up with twitter handles is fun.

Tim paced from the end of the hall to the front door like a caged animal. His head was bowed while his eyes were wild under ungroomed bangs. “You- you saw what happened in the videos and decided repeating Jay’s mistakes was such a wonderful fucking idea? Jess, did you even _think-_ ”  
  
“I woke up, Tim!” Jess insisted, stomping her foot. “I didn’t find the channel knowing about all this bullshit! I just- I- once I started, I couldn’t drop it and move on!”  
  
A bowed head jerked upwards. “Well you should’ve!” Tim snapped.  
  
Jess did not falter under his heated gaze. Hands clenched at her sides, she exhaled through her nostrils. “It’s too late to go back now,” she said hotly.  
  
Tim dropped his glare, but shook his head in heavily worn exasperation. “God, you sound just like him,” he rasped under his breath.  
  
She softened at the comment. “Tim, I- I know I can’t look you in the eyes if I want to tell you this is different, but... I only called you because I still have questions.”  
  
“Like what?” Tim asked. He ran his stout fingers through his visibly unwashed hair. “There’s no other tapes if that’s what your asking. I burned them all.”  
  
Jess felt a twinge in her chest. “Why did you give me that picture of me with Seth and Sarah if you didn't want me to remember more?”  
  
Tim crossed his arms over his chest. He was built like an ox, and just as strong. The way he had carried her like a ragdoll was proof of that. “I didn’t know you didn't… know.”  
  
Jess’s tongue was sandpaper against her teeth. She licked them anyways. “I think at least one of them is alive.”  
  
"I know," Tim said. "Jay believed Alex could have been unsuccessful more times than he let on."  
  
Jess’ hands found their way to her hair and tugged at it. She also needed a shower. “Did any of our friends get to have proper funerals?”  
  
The room went silent.  
  
And then.  
  
“No,” Tim said, staring at the floor. “The Operator took their bodies. But I, uh, made crosses for them in a field. All of them.”  
  
Inhale. Exhale. “Alex doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but he deserves to rest,” Jess said in a supple voice. Her lip wobbled slightly. “Seth and Sarah-?”  
  
“Even if they did survive, I wasn't sure. So yes." Tim croaked. He breathed deeply before meeting Jess’ eyes. “It’s hard to tell if I miss him sometimes. Jay- that is. The first time I told him to stay out of my life he immediately turned around uploaded my medical records.”  
  
“The first time?”  
  
Tim rolled his eyes. “He may have recorded everything, but that doesn’t mean it was put online.”  
  
“Ah.” Tim’s back was to her. Now that he was standing in her living room, hackles flattened and teeth hidden away, Jess could finally cut to the point.  
  
“I think I should mention something, uh,” Jess thumbed the hole in her jeans. The bruise underneath tingled. “I went to Rosswood. To um. See if totheark would come back.”  
  
Whatever ease had settled into Tim immediately hardened. He groaned and turned back to face her. “You wanted to catch their eye? Because you saw how well that went with Brian, huh?”  
  
“I took a chance!” Jess insisted, looking him dead in the eyes. They were two glass balls heavy with a weight that she could not ignore, but she was well aware of how sore her own gaze was.  
  
“Why did you call me from a burner cell?” Tim asked suddenly.  
  
Her next breath was sucked in through her teeth. “I lost it in Rosswood during a livestream- I didn’t show my face!” Jess added hurriedly. “I just wanted someone to know if I…”  
  
Jess’ laptop pinged.  
  
“That’s YouTube,” she said. Tim eyed her open laptop warrily. “Rip off the bandaid.”  
  
Scooping up her laptop, Jess blindly maneuvered around the couch. Tim loomed over her shoulder as she set it down on the counter. She shuffled over both to make room for him, and to soothe her discomfort.  
  
Jess clicked the notification and was instantly taken to a familiar channel.  
  
“Restoration?” Tim muttered as he took in the screen. Jess could feel how stiff he had gone.  
  
The videobox was completely red. She clicked the play button.  
  
The silence returned upon the room. Thick as the smoke in a burning home, it choked Jess out and kept her from forming words.  
  
The moment was almost a seal on brimstone. If they proceeded forward, it would be broken. Who knew what demons would escape if that were to happen?  
  
“Who’s Enoch?” Tim asked.  
  
The demons burst free.  
  
Jess switched to the Twitter website. Her account popped up after a few clips. “It’s part of my handle on Twitter. Enoch was Noah’s ancestor. He entered Heaven alive, I believe.”  
  
“Spiteful. Good.” Tim nodded seriously.  
  
Jess smirked. “I do seem suddenly popular though. Oh my...” She skimmed through the hundreds of notifications that had piled in overnight.  
  
Her blood froze in her veins.  
  
Attached to one tweet was a video- a segment from Jess’s stream where she was slumped against the woodpiles.  
  
“Jess,” Tim said slowly. “Who is that ?”  
  
Jess covered her mouth as a set of long, skinny legs stepped in front of her phone’s camera. They dropped onto their knees to investigate her unconscious body, head still out of view.  
  
They could only watch as the figure rolled her limp head around in their hands. Jess released her mouth in favor of cupping her frigid cheeks. The sight of a mysterious man handling her body sickened her with déjà vu.  
  
He finally leaned back after several minutes of inspection. The man lifted Jess’s useless arm- still weakly clutching her baseball bat- and shifted it so that the weapon laid over her lap. Sticky fingers then gathered up the photos covering the floor and stuffed them into a stained brown jacket.  
  
The pale hands they were attached to paused, hovering over the camera. It’s focus was shifted by sudden movement. A masked face now stared back at them.  
  
“No- he’s- he’s-” Tim’s gasp was not a surprise. He retreated to the bathroom, but Jess remained glued to her laptop. Sounds of retching coupled with the audio of heavy breathing in the clip added to Jess’ leaden stomach.  
  
It looked like- it almost looked like-  
  
Striking blank blue eyes pierced her heart, even from underneath a skeleton mask. Jess would not have noticed the color if it was not ingrained to key memories. Countless hours of footage had been reviewed by them.  
  
The unkempt, mousy hair poking out from underneath a battered cap was practically a smoking gun.

  
_Looking Like Thisss_ __  
_@Kweencorner_ __  
_In case you missed @Lockey ’s livestream, this is all you need to know. Shit went DOWN._ __  
_7:29 PM - August 4, 2018_ __  
  
  
_Ghost BDE_ __  
_@Phantommisalammi_ __  
_Marble Hornets is back babeey!_ __  
_7:33 PM - August 4, 2018_ __  
__  
  
_Jax Marksburg_ __  
_@Finalfantasty_ __  
_A vampire?_ __  
_8:03 PM - August 4, 2018_ __  
  
  
_Janice Dale_ __  
_@Iceicebabby_ __  
_That has to be Jay!! He’s alive!_ __  
_8:45 - PM August 4, 2018_ __  
__  
__  
_Lord Marker_ __  
_@Flyboy_ __  
_Where’s Tim?_ __  
_9:37 PM - August 4, 2018_ __  
  
__  
_Minnie McGreen_ __  
_@Mzgreen_ __  
_Holy shit that’s Jess! Our Jess!_ _  
__9:49 PM - August 4, 2018_

  
  
Jess slammed her laptop shut. Jay was alive. Alive. There was no way that could have been edited in.  
  
Under an old hat, his eyes had always been shadowed. Under a mask, the shadows were contained within them.  
  
Lies and omissions were the reason for Jess’ current state, still bleary-eyed from waking up. Lies and omissions, mingled with trumped-up justifications had left only two, now three, people standing out of seven. Jess would have to talk about this with Tim. They would have to get him back.  
  
Fumbling for the sink faucet, Jess felt her own sore muscles screeching. Her nerves sang like the quavering strings on a harp. She remained under the tap until her bones were soaked, attempting to wash away the disharmony and quiet her dissension between her mind and body.    
  
Jess leaned against her countertops, dripping onto the marble while heaving and shuttering. She was safe. She was awake.  
  
She didn't have to be alone.

 

* * *

 

Tim was draped on the rail of the back porch, smoking what couldn't have been his first cigarette of the night. The light from the house shone like an fluorescent halo against the grease in his unwashed hair.  
  
Jess crept quietly outside. She felt as if she had interrupted someone in prayer. Tim did not acknowledge her as she settled beside her.  
  
“Hey Tim…. are you…. Feeling any better?” Jess toyed with her hair. She already knew the answer. “I didn’t know…. Jay-”  
  
“You didn't see him in Rosswood?” Tim put his head in his hands and rubbed his face. His cigarette remained between his fingers. Jess noticed tattoos peeking out of his long sleeves.  
  
“I kinda blacked out for two days. I figured it had just been that thing that took Seth’s photos.” Jess’s words felt stale. Tim was owed some words of consolation, but from her…. Her care for Jay was genuine, but her only attachment to him was nothing compared to his.  
  
This man had squared off against the source of their torment with only a flashlight and his will in the past. Now, cradling a cigarette like a lifeline, he just seemed… weary… “I should have gotten him help.”  
  
“The investigation changed him,” Jess said softly. The same was true for her. “He was so violent at the end, I doubt he could have been reasoned with even tied down, but… you’re pretty stubborn when it comes to Jay. If we found him again, I think he could be brought back.”  
  
“Optimism hasn’t worked in the past,” Tim rasped. He inhaled another puff of smoke and blew it out while curling his tongue. It drifted around him.  
  
Jess’ state of being felt just as solid.  
  
Tim brought his hand over his heart, pressing his palm flat against it. The cigarette he held with it proved that he was unaware of the action. “You’re pretty stubborn yourself if you’re willing to keep at this,” he added.  
  
“You kept at it for a while yourself,” Jess said.  
  
_(“We can’t stop now! We’ve come so far!” Jay’s eyes were bulging a he cried the words of a desperate man.)_  
  
Tim’s caterpillar-thick eyebrows set into a thick line across his forehead. The crease between them was deep enough to have been a small gouge. “Yeah, I had a lot more pieces left back then,”  
  
“It’s worth a try to me. I’ll do it with or without you, but I think you have a right to know what I plan to do.”  
  
Tim flicked the hand grasping his cigarette. A burning smell clung to him. “What are they going to do with us, huh?” Tim smiled bitterly as he took a drag. He exhaled it through pursed lips. “A couple of basket cases.”  
  
_(A hooded man stared at the defiled medical records in his gloved hands. Tim was patient zero. His best friend had done this to him._  
_He is a LIAR.)_  
  
Jess could hear a murder of crows diffusing around the trees. The black birds chattery caws were a odd sort of comfort. “No idea.”  
  
Tim snuffed his cigarette with the sole of his boot. She would later ask him to sweep her porch- ash smears weren’t pleasant sights. “What’s your plan then?”  
  
“We’re gonna get our boy back. Shell of a person or not, he’s still Jay.” Albeit hesitantly, Jess touched Tim’s arm. It was as knotted as a tree trunk. When her turned away, she let him. “We understand how he’ll be feeling better than anyone else. You’ll understand hsi current state better than I can.”  
  
“For Jay.” Tim nodded. His back was a vast wall standing between their vulnerabilities.  
  
“For Jay,” Jess whispered.

* * *

 

Jess rarely visited graveyards anymore.  
  
As a child she had lived by an abandoned church, and her aunt would help her craft chains of flowers to decorate toppled headstones. She hadn’t been to one since Adinah had passed. Some subconscious part of her associated graveyards with more cheerful memories.  
  
What had kept her from visiting late family all these years?  
  
Her subconscious remembered what she hadn't.  
  
Jess’ car was parked away from the sight, and the day was just as hot and bright as it had been for days. The chill in the air persisted regardless. Fear was not Jess’ forefront emotion by any means, but seeing Tim disappear for half an hour now left room for a sense of foreboding to settle in. She found herself cranking the heat up and locking the doors.  
  
Tim appeared from between the trees after another half hour. In his arms was a shoebox, and his sleeves were pushed up to reveal grease-streaked arms. Jess unlocked the car only after he was close enough to touch it.  
  
Tim hovered by the passenger’s side door, so Jess shifted into the driver’s seat. He entered the car wordlessly. The shoebox fixed itself on his lap.  
  
“So,” Jess said.  
  
“So?” Tim sighed.  
  
“There’s napkins in the glovebox if you want to clean up,” she said. Tim didn’t respond, but he began scavenging through the glovebox.  
  
Jess turned away. He had wanted a moment alone at the makeshift graveyard, and perhaps he still needed some privacy. The area was a scenic one anyways. The trees were ghosts, but the sea of wildflowers surrounding the dirt road were beautiful. The dirt road was patched with grass, and even dandelions. IIt felt like something from an old book with faeries and lost children in the woods.  
  
That wasn’t too many beats off of her own story.  
  
How had Tim found this place?  
  
“It’s just beyond the trees,” Tim said. His voice carried a mixture of exhaustion and strain. “You can go check it out if you want.”  
  
Jess struggled to offer him a reassuring smile. He hadn’t looked up. His bare forearms displayed monochromic tattoos. Trees and symbols wrapped around his left, and black and white flowers dotted with grey wrapped around his right. She chose not to comment on the raised skin hidden in the tree bark.  
  
“You can go through that box without me if you need to,” Jess said. The arm of trust carrying these words seemed to finally touch Tim, and he looked up.  
  
_(“I know why you kept that tape from me.” Jay’s voice crackled with static as his movements became more frantic.)_ __  
__  
Tim swallowed roughly. “It’s Jay’s stuff.”  
  
“What?” Jess blinked. She hadn’t been expecting that. “Like his tapes? I thought you said you burned those?”  
  
“I did, this is…” Tim’s dark eyes darted to the side. “Stuff he left behind. Stuff I thought he might want to be buried with.”  
  
Jess knew Jay well enough. “His camera?” she asked.  
  
Tim’s frown deepened. “Yeah. I think that’s what he took your phone for. I figured if we, uh, we have it that it might be a comfort. To him. That is. As much as I hate that goddamn camera.”  
  
Jess snorted and opened the car door. she tied her hair back before trekking off, and Tim waved wordlessly. Stuffing her cold hands in her the grey pockets of her jacket, Jess passed through the barrier of hawthorns. Beyond the grove was a small clearing full of lush grass, mushrooms, and wooden crosses.  
  
Jess seated herself down in the center of the clearing. It gave her a clear view of every marker. “Hey guys,” she said on a breath. “Sorry I took so long to find you.”  
  
The crosses said nothing. Each one had a wreath of flowers with wilted edges. Tim had visited recently before today.  
  
“I think I miss you,” Jess said. “It blurs a lot.... The remainants of my own feelings and my second-hand attachments from those tapes. Erm, Brian, you were a psychology major, right? You’d probably have been helpful with figuring all of this crap out.”  
  
_(A younger Jessica Locke sat in front of a grave, braiding flower stems together. “I think this person would like buttercups,” she said simply._ __  
_“That’s lovely, bubelah,” her aunt crooned. Her own dark hair was braided with the same flower.)_  
  
“Amy, I think I know why I bought an apartment with a guest bedroom now,” Jess rasped. “And Seth, I’m sorry I lost your pictures. I also think Tim may have burned… a few.”  
  
Jess moved her arms over her knees and rested her chin on her hands. “Everything I’m saying feels kinda repetitive. ‘I know this,’ and ‘I think I know that.’ It’s all true, I just…”  
  
Her eyes fell on a grave at the edge of the clearing, divorced from the others. The flowers rested upon it were as dead as the man they were for.  
  
“Alex,” Jess said tightly. “You tried to shoot me and Jay. You- you probably killed Amy, and at least one of my other friends- you-”  
  
Jess curled in on herself, pulling her hood over her face. Warm tears welled in her eyes. It was a struggled to breathe. “Why- why can’t I hate you, you bitch? Tim hates you. You murdered  Jay. All of your crap about this being Tim’s fault- you delusional, messiah-complex bastard.”  
  
_(Alex sat, unfocused eyes seeing something beyond the camera. A crown of blood dripped from his scalp. Stigmata wounds. If he did not act, the only thing that could stop this would be divine intervention.)_  
  
“You shouldn’t be dead either,” she choked.  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of mixed feel feelings about Alex. He was a misguided and bad person, but he was just trying to help. Jay was just trying to help and made things worse. Oof.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	5. Black Water - Of Monsters and Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strange silence  
> Surrounding me  
> Grows closer  
> Feels colder  
> But I'm ready  
> To suffer the sea  
> Black water  
> Take over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the format ends up being weird! Ao3 decided to be Homophobic to me and made me go through this and manually reformat it from my phone. I love this website but I'm Tired.

Tim thumbed through the stack of credit cards as they drove home. On his lap was a tape, a rickety camera, and a knife. His heart may have been barred online, but he skeleton of who Jay had been had gone in the ground for him.

Jess kept her eyes trained on the road, but her mind wandered. The clouds looked like jellyfish if she squinted. Jellyfish and sailboats. Hot liquid sloshed around her mind.

Rotting bones in the domain of The Operator. That was all that was left of her friends. The graves she kneeled in front of had been empty flowerbeds. Somehow that was worse than neat rows of worms meat.

“Cool tattoos,” Jess managed to push out. The road ahead of them stretched endless. “Rad designs.”

Jess had an arrow tattooed on her hip. It’s meaning had been lost with her friends. Deep in the ground, along with chunks of her mind the size of melon-baller scoops.

Tim rubbed his forearm thoughtfully, and then yanked down his sleeves. Jess hid a wince.

What was she to do? Poking at bruises that were not her own would be an overstep of personal boundaries. Still, she couldn't afford to thread around their issues like a sleeping giant.

"They’re roses and anemone,” Tim muttered. “And an evergreen with tribute symbols. For Brian and Jay.” And old, faded scars that had not been touched in years.

Black, white, and grey. Obsession, purity, and fading hope.

Tim liked to poke at his own bruises, it seemed. “I wanted sleeves when I was younger,” Jess admitted. When Tim snorted, she smiled. “No- really! I wanted to be a punk. I may have been twelve, but I had goals.”

“And you really kept that up, huh?” Tim snorted again.

Jess was denim jackets, cropped hoodies, and heeled boots. She was a brown uniform that read Ship Out. She was old clothes the color of earth, stained from sitting in the dirt.

“Sure did,” Jess mused. “I turn left here, right?”

Tim’s ease fell away at once, and up came his walls. “Yeah,” he said. “Here we are.”

Rosswood sprouted up before them. They were soon surrounded by four walls of oak, and a ceiling of leaves. Home. Tim cradled Jay’s camera while Jess held her bat in a white-knuckle grip. And they headed into the dark.

Birdsong once again fell silent, but this time Jess’ company was not through a stream. The gloom of the wood pooled up around them until it washed far over their heads, flowing around tree-tops. They found their footing in the same rickety old building where Jay had last been seen. And there they waited.

 

* * *

 

 _Watching_. That was what he was doing. The was all he ever did. He watched them from between tree branches, nested and aware. His sight was a fickle thing- sometimes it hurt to open his throbbing eyelids, and sometimes he saw everything rendered in excruciating detail.

Adjusting his mask, the man who was not Jay leaned forward on the branch. The man who was not masked and the woman whose eye he had taken were so, so close.

_01010100 01101001 01101101 00100000 0001010 01001010 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 0001010_

_01001010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01100011 01100001 00100000 0001010 0001010_

 

* * *

 

Night fell like an anvil.

The hot, sticky heat clung to their skin while black water filled the trees. If they did not stay grounded, they would fall victim to the desperation of a drowning man.

The slightest chill in the air had Jess raising her baseball bat in the air. Null features be damned. Jess would give this thing a shiner if it came for her or either of the boys.

 

* * *

 

But the man who was not Jay had to wait. Although itching to investigate, something stayed his legs. Last time he had seen one of them, it had been when the woman was unconscious. In his hand he held her third eye. The green symbol at the top told him that the battery was still over halfway full, even after three days.

_01010011 01000101 01000101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01010100 01001000 01001001 01010010 01000100 00100000 01000101 01011001 01000101_

 

* * *

 

“So how did you and Jay pay for all of those hotels?” Jess jammed her bat into the ground and kept her posture ready, but she tried to keep her tone loose.

“Apparently Jay was quite well-off. The credit cards in the shoebox were all his.” Tim said. His legs were locked tightly while he leaned back.

“Really? I mean, that does make sense. You can’t really attain all of those student loans and then just leave.”

“I’m still working mine off,” Tim grumbled. “For majoring in musical composition.”

“You didn’t use any of his money?” Jess thought it would have been justified. If Jay was willing to burn his funds on hotel after hotel, then the man he dragged into it deserved some financial help.

“I wouldn’t have let him if he offered,” Tim said.

That, and seeing the name of a dead friend flash on a screen every day wouldn’t have helped his mental state.

 

* * *

 

Slunking backwards to the base of the tree branch, the man who was not Jay concealed himself further. He could see everything through his new possesion. It allowed him to closely observe without approaching- something that made it far easier to catalog his days.

His face scrunched up underneath his mask. How long had he been here again? Minutes felt like hours and months felt like days. The only constant was the plastic on his face. That, and the dull pain in his torso.

 

* * *

 

Tim grabbed the limp camera and re-examined it thoughtfully. “Do you think he’d notice it’s broken?”

“I have no idea. Probably.”

“Then again, Jay was pretty stupid to begin with,” Tim mused. “‘Help me get the truth out there,’ he said. ‘It will help people,’ he said.”

“You helped me,” Jess said.

 

* * *

 

The man who was not Jay lowered his head. If he wanted to see them up close, he’d have to be clever. He dropped gracefully from the tree. The man that was not Jay was all limbs, and they caught him almost soundlessly. His breath escaped him in a sharp gasp.

 

* * *

Tim shook his head. “Because I infected you. Anyways,” he added abruptly.

“This thing can’t really play tapes. Screen’s busted. I doubt he’d remember this was his anyways.”

Jess’ throat itched, and she swallowed it down. “You didn’t remember breaking your leg, but you kinda remembered who you were while you were masked? Your states are kinda… reversed after all.”

 

* * *

 

If he strained his ears, the man who was not Jay could discern words. His chest was beginning to swell with static- but he was practically right underneath of them-

 

* * *

“Then why hasn’t he tried to find me? Or you? Or even appeared online?” Tim’s grimace ran deep. The hungry sea outside had begun to la at their ankles, even from the safety their lighthouse offered.

_Return to the ark._

Jess fiddled with her jacket’s zipper. “There could be lots of reasons. This thing leaves you hollow. Jay’s been out here with it for half of a decade.” She swallowed again, but her mouth was too dry to offer any moisture.

 

* * *

 

The unmasked man was rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands, in full view of the window. Whatever was left of his friend slipped below the building and towards the stairs leading up inside. It was a boat on churning waves, and they were the beacon in the dark guiding him forward. He had to see them up close.

 

* * *

 

Tim’s hands fell over his mouth as he spoke. Jess half expected him to pull the words out. Instead, one finger seemed to absentmindedly fall over his lips, similar to a shushing motion.

“A shell of a person,” Tim rasped.

 

* * *

 

His tongue was not his own, but the man who was not Jay had precise control over his steps. He shared that trait with the Hooded One. Light, agile feet. He tilted his head back as he ascended the steps.

 

* * *

 

"Once we wake Jay up, you can move if you want.”

Tim was not a bad man. Jess could handle thing on her own if need be. Even if she didn’t want to.

“You think I’m just going to leave him alone with this again?” Tim frowned bitterly. His scruffy beard brought more contrast to his face- even in the poor lighting. Jess could picture him as a contour painting. “I left him to rot once. I won’t do it again.”

 

* * *

 

The man and woman were turned away from him, talking from across the room. The man who was not Jay slipped to the side, just out of view. If he reached out a pale hand, he could just reach-

 

* * *

 

“I’ll take care of him.”

“You’re in no place to put someone else before yourself.” Tim narrowed his eyes. Jess pursed her lips.

“And you are?” Stealth may have been one of his skills, but the man who was not Jay possessed no tact. His fingers brushed against the warm muscle in front of him, and it-

 

* * *

 

Tim jolted forward out of the doorway as if being shocked. There was no fizzy crackle, and no hair standing on end, but a gaunt face loomed into moonlight.

Jess watched her companion stagger and fall from locking his knees. Before she could move, Jay was on top of him.

Tim could have easily overpowered Jay. He had twice the power behind his movements, and a lot of untapped rage. Yet, Tim remained paralyzed as Jay grabbed the back of his neck and brought him forward, frozen and shaking. Jay cupped Tim’s face, pressing their noses together. Tim only stared back into shadowed eyes with a mix of emotions flashing across his face in sequence.  _Shock. Anger. Sadness. Guilt. Fear._

They did not know his intentions.

This was not their Jay.

With heavy hands, Jess forced herself to act. Her baseball bat collided with the back of Jay’s head. The loud _crack_ of the impact split the air. A soft thump followed.

Tim wheezed, gripping his own heart through his shirt. He struggled to rise off the ground for several moments. “That- that’s not Jay,” he choked. “He didn’t- didn’t-”

Jess understood.

 

* * *

 

She didn’t remember tying Jay up in the trunk, or climbing into the passenger seat, or pocketing her phone, but she did remember the words to the song she was playing.

 

_‘You are my peach, you are my plum_

_You are my earth, you are my sun_

_I love your fingers, I love your toes_

_The back of your head, the tip of your nose’_

 

Tim beat his hands against the steering wheel over and over again, drowning out the soft chords flowing from the speakers. Shouts swallowed the lyrics. He eventually dropped his head against the steering wheel, exhausted and weeping and panting. His skin had a sickly, dewy sheen.

 

_‘One day, you will find someone_

_Who will love you like you deserve_

_But tonight, I'm the only one left_

_And I'm betting it's a fact that you will never learn’_

 

Jess touched Tim’s arm. This time, he allowed her to rub his back for a few heartbeats before shrugging her off.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked him. It all came out in a rush.

“I think I hate him right now,” Tim whispered. “He was better of dead. At least then he couldn't be hurt. And now-

“Jay was literally the source of my problems. He was trying to help others, but I don’t think he had to stick that fucking camera in my face amd stalk me for days to do that,” Tim seethed. “And now he’s alive, or whatever we are when we’re behind those goddamn masks."

“You said you wanted to help him,” Jess observed. “So what changed?”

_(“I don’t want to be alone,” Jay says between hurried kisses. The pair of them are fumbling over each other, deprived from stability and desperate for human contact.)_

Tim’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. Sharp bones almost split white knuckles. “It’s hard not to trauma bond with the only other person in your life not trying to kill you. And then he went after me with a knife."

“He still needs our help,” Jess said. She thumbed the skip button on her phone, and the music started up again.

 

_‘Swallowed by a vicious vengeful sea oh ooh oh-oh_

_Darker days are raining over me oh ooh oh-oh_

_In the deepest depths I lost myself oh ooh oh-oh_

_I see myself through someone else’_

 

“I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve our help- I want to help him- I’m just- the anger towards him is all resurfacing now that he’s not dead.” Tim scrubbed his face. Really, who needed a skin treatment when you had your own tears? “So is the guilt for being responsible for him almost dying, and for the deaths of several other people- and- fuck- I deserve this.”

“You helped me,” Jess said softly. “And now we’re gonna help Jay.”

_(“HE IS A LIAR.” the wall reads. Tim screams so hard he can feel blood in his throat.)_

“Besides,” Jess continued. “We’re off to a better start than last time. For one, no one is trying to kill us.. There’s less people to worry about, and only one masked man in the woods we have to worry about- and we do have a hold on him.”

Tim drew in a rattling breath. His hands shook on the steering wheel. “Maybe you have a point.”

“Bet. Besides, I can protect us,” Jess joked, nudging her bat. Something in shoebox at her feet bumped against the cardboard with a soft clack. “We can protect each other.”

“We don’t bring anyone else into it,” he cleared his throat and wiped his puffy eyes. “okay?”

“Okay,” Jess replied, hoping to God in both of her faiths that only one liar sat in her car. “No one else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I love Welcome to Nightvale.Catch Jay Merrick running around Rosswood with a pokemon-themed phone case. 
> 
> 1\. There’s a lot of haunted places where electrical items just… don’t work, or die really fast. That’s sorta the case with the Operator, but.  
> 2\. If you lock your knees in place for a while you will either pass out or fall down. I may not be a marching band kid, but I’ve endured marching drills and military exercises. Ya girl has stories.  
> 3\. I love inserting my own headcanons into this story. If you think I’m being to harsh on Jay, you’re valid, but this is the same man who went after Tim in his own home  
> 4\. The first song Jessica played is Peach by the Front Bottoms. The second is the title because I’m Cheap.  
> 5.  
> Black roses- obsession (with the Operator)  
> White roses- purity (for the innocent victims)  
> Anemone- fading hope and a feeling of having been forsaken; anticipation (self explanatory)  
> 6\. I headcanon Jess as half Jewish and basically half Roman Catholic? I couldn't find anything on the actress but the character doesn't have a confirmed religion. I'm experimenting with religion myself so it's a Mood for her to have multiple beliefs.
> 
> What are your thoughts on Jay/Skully? Tim? Jess? There general actions?
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	6. In Fact - Gregory and the Hawk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step one: light me on fire  
> Step two: walk clean away  
> I won't burn long  
> And evidence of your done-wrong will be gone  
> In seconds I swear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Crisis, if you celebrate it. Happy holidays in general.

They carried Jay’s body inside between their own. In a far-off echo of their own lives, he was simply drunk. There was no bruise at the base of his skull, and no mask slipping off of his face. His head still lolled back and banged against the doorway, but the drool on his mouth wreaked of alcohol instead of something stale. Maybe his face was even flushed the shade of red litmus paper.

In this reality, however, Tim didn’t look back at Jay after dropping him on the couch, restrained by zip-ties. The only light on was a lamp by the hallway, which cast them both in orange lighting. Tim padded into the kitchen to search the fridge. Jess watched him chug two bottles of water before noticing the change in the room.

A tape. On Jess’ coffee table, neatly written in red marker, the label read “ _FOR YOU,_ ” with x’s crossing through the circles.

“Oh good,” Tim said. “They know where you live.”

Jess picked it up and flipped it over in her hands. It certainly wasn’t rigged to explode, so she was better off finding something to play it on. “I think I have an old VHS player in my closet, let me go look.”

She did, in fact, have an old VHS player stuffed in the back of her closet, behind thrifted coats and old moving boxes. Jess dragged it out to the living room and hooked it up to her television.

“This is what happens when you don’t respond to their cryptic fucking videos by recording yourself running through the woods,” Tim said tiredly. He remained at the kitchen table, leaning against his hands. Jess didn’t blame him.

The tape began with a view of Sarah’s mouth. She stood before the camera, taking in short, soft breaths to ease herself into something.

And then she began to sing. Her voice was like an tuning fork. The shrill, wavering sounds were broken up by static. It only added to the haunting effect. Jess was transfixed, stuck staring at the screen.

Sarah’s echoing song ended with a soft hum. She turned to peer at someone behind the camera, standing on the tips of her toes. “ _How was that?_ ” she asked the cameraman.

“ _Better than I was hoping for_!” he said with a laugh. “ _It’s only for one scene, though. Did you review the lyrics I prepared? I was hoping to run through a few practice takes._ ”

The sound of Alex’s voice startled Jess. She and Tim exchanged looks, but it was more of surprise and guilt than out of fear.

Sarah’s lips quirked into a small, proud smile. “ _You like writing love songs for Amy?_ The song I’m supposed to sing to Brian feels like it’s directed at someone else.”

Alex, the man who tried to kill Sarah, chuckled. “ _Amy likes my love songs! Tim’s not the only one who can play an instrument."_

“ _Alright, alright. I believe you Kralie.”_ The footage wavered. Sarah’s voice carried over it.

 

_'You leave me here_

_And you go there_

_Boy, you’ve got wanderlust_

_And I’m missin’ you still_

_Oh-woah-oh’_

 

The scene glitched out. Suddenly it was Brian facing them. He sat in swiveling chair, coughing through bloody lips. “ _I’ll need to ask Tim about this_ ,’’ he said with a sniffle. He was flush with a fever, and stained with sweat. “ _He’s had this cough for a few weeks longer than I have._ ”

Jess inhaled through her teeth. Stereoscopic distortion flickered over Brian’s face. Garbled babble from behind the glitching footage followed them into the next scene.

Alex was on his hands and knees, hacking up blood. It took a moment to process that between coughs, Alex was sobbing. “ _A-Amy,_ ” he sputtered. “ _It had to be done. Amy- Amy- Amy- you can’t get infected by him now_ -”

Jay sat on his bed- clearly before it was scorched- talking on the phone. His face pinched. “ _I’m sorry for calling so late- no, no- I still woke you up. It’s- we’ve barely met, Tim. I should go-”_

Sarah’s face reappeared, this time with a glare. She was much younger- a senior at most, and clad in a shining marching band uniform.. The poor quality of the film made it difficult to observe the details of her face.

“ _Step off beat again and I will end you, Merrick,”_ Sarah hissed. “ _And put the camera away! You don’t have the personality to be in yearbook_.”

The film froze. Stereoscopic glitching guided Brian over the still image before the scene loaded behind him. The lighting cast him in thermal colors.

Brian stumbled around across a dim stage. His body locked and relaxed over and over again as he clumsily waltzed around the rest of the cast. “ _Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint!_ ” he pleaded. “ _A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me! I have it, and soundly too. Your houses_!”

Black filled the screen, and then green. Sarah and Jess were sitting together on a bench. “ _C’mon Sar, run it again,_ ” Seth said from behind the camera.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “ _If I run it one more time I won’t be able to say any other words_.”

The younger, livelier Jess giggled. “ _Alex’ll be mad at you if you don’t nail it during filming, right?”_

“ _Yeah, he’s an asshole, but sadly, we still love him,_ ” Seth said. “ _Don’t we Lola?”_

The two girls squealed as Lola ran up to them, nuzzling their feet with her head happily. Jess saw her own hands cradle Lola’s head and bring her up for exaggerated kisses.

Jess was in the next scene, leaning against her seatbelt in a car’s passenger seat. It was well past twilight, and the streetlights on the parkway flashed by. " _Thanks for the ride, Tim. I know you have midterms.”_

“ _I couldn’t just leave the two of you_ ," Tim said.

A shot of Jay cut in. Much like Brian, he was sitting in front of the camera, looking worse for wear. As scrawny as he was, he had more skin on his bones compared to his current self. Jay ran his hands through his hair several times. His eyes darted up, down, and around before settling on the camera. _“I- I don’t know if this is going to go in the next entry, but I wanted to make this for myself. Tim’s been restless. He says we should keep moving- nothing has happened. I think he’s just paranoid because of his dreams. I can't say I don't feel the same._

“ _I_ -” Jay breathed. Shaking- he twined his shaking fingers together and pressed them under his nose. _“I can’t remember much of the past week, or the past week before that. I think I’ve been more aggressive towards Tim lately. He’s been patient, but I’m worried I’ll end up snapping_.

“ _If that is the case,”_ he continued _. “I’m sorry. Tim, I can’t wait to just have a normal life after all of this is over. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I dragged you into this-”_

Seth took Jay’s place. He was moving the camera around his desk, fiddling with the angle. Eventually, he leaned back into his chair. “ _There we go_ ,” he sighed. The pouty smile he wore in Jess’ digital pictures was gone. Underneath crooked glasses, his eyes were blank.

The doorknob jiggled in the background. Brian entered the scene with  plastic bags at his side. There was nothing behind his eyes when he blinked up at the camera- dazed but smiling politely. In a yellow hoodie.

“ _We’re finally gonna start getting back at Alex, for real_?” Brian asked.

Seth’s wide smile was a dagger that buried into Jess’ heart. Cold light reflected off of his glasses. _“Asshole will deserve what’s coming to him.”_

Another scene did not take its place.

The message was clear-  _l_ _ook at what you did._

_(HOW MUCH DO YOU HATE", the black screen read. "IT IS NOT ENOUGH".)_

The members of totheark hated Alex. Alex was the one killing the infected. Now that he was gone, their rage needed a new outlet. The traitor was a reasonable candidate. He was the lost twin. The source of their disease.

"Whoever made that probably recorded over some older footage to get it all on one tape. All just to taunt us.” Tim blinked slowly in the unlit kitchen. Part of Jess was grateful for being unable to see how weary and aged he must have looked.

Jess could feel skin peel off of her lip. She bit it harder. “Seth was some type of film major.” His last name was Wilson. He was her boyfriend. She repeated the facts to herself over and over again in her mind. Seth was glasses and a pouty smile. His dog was named Lola. He was one of two people who could call her Jessie.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tim finally asked, looking up from his trance

“No,” Jess said. She bit her tongue instead of her lip. “Jay was calling you in that one scene, right?”

“I met Jay in front of my doctor’s office,” Tim said heavily. “but apparently e knew each other well enough in college to have each other’s contacts. Who would have guessed our memory from that summer is botched too.” 

"I don’t remember ever being in you car,” Jess said. “That day Amy asked for a ride to help Alex go location scouting. We got there late, and Alex made Amy leave me behind. I guess someone else was with me?”

“Sounds like Alex,” Tim said. The venom was faint, and blindly directed. It still stung regardless. “Not to, uh, completely change the topic, but we should probably take shifts watching over Jay.”

“I have a shift tomorrow, and I need to work overtime to make up for the days I… misses.” Jess stared at the rise and fall of Jay’s chest. It was too faint to see without intent focus. “I’m sorry.”

“I can stay here if you’ll let me, no need to apologize.” Tim rubbed his thumb against his pointer finger absentmindedly. “I’ll… keep an eye on Jay. Just like old times.”

Jess inhaled deeply. “Just like old times,” she repeated.

 

* * *

 

 

A woman made her way down the street with grocery bags bundled in her arms. There was a slight pep in her step, and the smile on her face was bright. She passed several store windows without notice. Another grocer, a phone repair center, a music store- the woman was absorbed in her own good mood. A hum buzzed over her mouth, and she muttered the words.

 

‘ _You leave me here_

_And you go there_

_Boy, you’ve got wanderlust_

_And I’m missin’ you still_

_Oh-woah-oh_

 

_My boy, my boy_

_My boy, my boy’_

 

The woman’s hips swung to the beat of her own song. There was little that could get her down at this point- her day had been fantastic, and- Her eyes were snagged by a patch of missing posters. Two bouncy feet acted on their own accord, planting her before them when the tune on her lips died. It was the oldest poster towards the bottom that concaved her chest like a blunt hammer.

_Alex Kralie. Missing._

Why did that name drive the nail in further? Her groceries slipped from her arms, spilling out into the street. _Alex Kralie._ The cans bumping into her feet did nothing, and the smell of wet vegetables on the sidewalk went ignored.

 _Alex Kralie._ The woman swiped her dark bangs out of her eyes. She felt sick, and not from the life in her stomach. _Alex Kralie. Missing._ The phone number at the bottom was hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I finally found all of the canon surnames of the MH characters!!! Heck yeah babyyyy.  
> 2\. We all know Alex was a terrible writer but consider this: his music sucked too.  
> 3\. I know that Skully is probably going to be Seth or Jess but I am very attached to Skully! Jay and Troy has my respect but also my tears.  
> 4\. I have been spelling Kralie with an extra e for a year and I am oddly Angry about that. It’s the fourth reason I’ve had to edit this fic a bunch post-uploading. As a lesbian I can't Read.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	7. Trouble - Cage The Elephant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble on my left, trouble on my right  
> I've been facing trouble almost all my life  
> My sweet love, won't you pull me through?  
> Everywhere I look, I catch a glimpse of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Masky and Hoody arent Creepypastas.  
> Me: I'm putting a Creepypasta reference in my Marble Hornets fic.

Jess had left her phone with Tim. Logically, Tim knew he had permission to look through it. Jessica had handed it directly to him, commenting on Jay’s past obsession with filming.

Logically speaking, that was a clear invitation to investigate in her place. However, Tim was not a logical man. He was the man who suckered people in their eyes. He was the man who charged blindly through hallways and woke up with blood in his hair. He was the man tasked with guarding someone who he had watched sleep.

Tim stared down at the phone on the table, and then up at Jay on the chair across from him. The masked man cocked his head to the side.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Tim said. The Jay he knew was not silent. He stammered and rambled and questioned everything. He watched, and he commented. Now it was like looking at a blank wall. Standing up, Tim pocketed Jessica’s phone.

The scar on his leg bit into his nerves. He circled the couch a few times and sat back down. He then stood back up to relock the door a few times.

“Is Brian alive?” Tim asked. Jay dropped his gaze. Tim was almost stupid enough to take it as an answer, but then he noticed the camera propped up on the kitchen counter- which Jay was now staring at.

_(“Do you have to film everything?” Tim asks Heat prickles underneath his skin._

_Jay’s eyes are pale mirrors. “I don’t want to forget.”)_

“I lied to your face day after day and lead you to your death, and you don’t seem to know that,” Tim said in a raspy whisper. Cigarette embers would come out if he coughed. By now, Jay’s heart must have been an ashtray. He grabbed the aged camera and set it on the coffee table in front of Jay.

“You were no better, you goddamn Icarus,” Tim muttered. He popped his collar to shield his burning neck. The passive man leaned closer, blinking.

Tim had seen his own ghost in the mirror- in his eyes. Decay weighed heavy on his tongue, and rotted teeth had a bitter taste. It was only more upsetting to know that he was not the only walking corpse.

_(“Fool,” Tim says to and empty grave.)_

The rain against the windows crackled like embers devouring a log in a fire pit. Tim’s back was to the porch windows- caught between a rock and a hard place. Or a nightmare and a zombie. “Do you remember the nightmares? The trees?”

_(“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Jay says. And god, he means it. Sleep was a rare, elusive mistress that visited sparsely, only at odd hours and never two days in a row._

_“Y’aint botherin’ me,” Tim says. “I was just resting my eyes.”)_

“You said I had more emotional capacity than you,” Tim said. “I wish that wasn’t true.”

_(“You were the first person not to string me along, so, uh, I think that means something. About your character, I mean,” Jay says. It’s the closest thing to a declaration of love that one of them will ever manage.)_

 

* * *

 

 

Fate had a tendency to look Tim Wright straight in the eye and tell him to grow a goddamn pair.

Although never the logical man, he was hardly the brazen one. When the phone still weighed like a brick in the curve of his jeans, Jessica suddenly had to work overtime. _“I don’t want to risk ticking off my boss,”_ she had said.

Tim had understood. Of course he had- his own recent resignation marked an end to work day after endless work day. Nothing, not even his work schedule, had been a constant in the past years. That didn’t mean he had to like it.

If he would like to do anything, it would be to hug Jay again. Or Brian. Or maybe even Amy. Those thoughts had to be kept down, though. The lumbering man who saw fingers in tree branches couldn't be trusted to look at someone who wasn't there and not reach out to them.

Jay’s skeleton had remained sitting quietly on the armchair all day. He hadn’t eaten, or looked away from the camera that Tim had baited him with. Empty eye sockets left Tim thinking _what if- what if- what if-_

“You like that camera, huh?” Tim muttered. Smalltalk with his- with Jay was a growth in his throat. He could probably cut it out if he tried, but he just wanted to ignore it and live on.

He breached the gallery unceremoniously. It overflowed with blurry videos- what did he expect, honestly? The binary code stamped at the corners in place of proper file labels wasn’t even a surprise. Cryptic sign-offs were a symptom of being a masked-wearing lunatic.

 _Lunatic_. His lunatic sat docilsely by. The crows on the porch had clacking calls. Tim fought down the yell of _get a fucking job. There’s nothing shiny to take in here. You can’t just sit and watch our private life, you bastards-_

“Binary code is easy to translate,” Tim said instead.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Video 01000011 “C” - Footage of a stream. Nothing of note_

_Video 01000001 “A” - Footage of ants swarming a worm. Nothing of note. But creepy as hell._

_Video 01001110 “N” - Footage of the sunset. Nothing of note._

 

 

* * *

 

Twenty-four videos of nothing. Jay’s staccato breathing over crunching leaves brought on nostalgia diluted by guilt, but there were only so many shots of empty trees Tim could bear to watch. It was their titles that choked him out. His copy-pasted patchwork addition to Jessica’s notes slammed into him, pushing his head underwater. He was spiraling, spiraling, _spiraling_ dow  into the dark.

_C-A-N Y-O-U H-E-A-R M-E-? I-M S-T-I-L-L H-E-R-E_

_Nothing of note. Nothing of note. Nothing of note._ The words swam around Tim in the water. Stale air was driven out by a swill of salt- he had to keep his mouth closed and _get it out- get it out- GET IT OUT-_

It would have been better to hear Jay screeching maniacally, heart  and teeth bared. Mind muted by static. Towards the end, his intelligence had been driven away by madness. Paranoia did to man what a ants did to worms. The brutality of his end was a mercy now. The current stretch of silence brought a sheen down over Tim’s eyes.

_(“I don't want to be forgotten,” Jay says. His walls of code have been dropped._

_“I don’t want to forget,” Tim replies. In the darkness of the hotel room, it all fades away. Their heartbeats are funeral marches.)_

 

* * *

 

 

Jess loved the jingle of her keys. A childhood of obsessing over Tinkerbell made her giggle at the sound. For a moment, she stood in the doorway and forgot what was locked in her home.

Only for a moment.

It was silent as a tomb. Jess fretted, as she crossed the threshold, that it was as empty. She had weirder fever dreams cataloged in her high school journal, and-

Tim was hunched over on the couch, gushing without making a sound. Jay’s form was nowhere to be seen. Jess’ body tensed- a doe caught in headlights. She could tell that Tim was crying by the way he shielded his eyes. He deserved someone to comfort him-

“I locked him in the bathroom,” Tim croaked. The strain to his voice was almost nonexistent. Jess numbly fell beside him on the couch.

“Talk to me, Tim,” she said. “You know keeping this in will kill you.” Tim had a car. He could have left without another word, and a slam of the door, if he so wished. Jess expected as much- one didn't exactly prod a corned animal and escape with unmarred fingers.

And yet….

“Do you know what it’s like to only be able to depend on one person?” Tim asked, hugging himself closely, as if he thought Jess wouldn’t offer that type of comfort. As if he had conditioned himself to independence. Not everyone liked physical contact- Jess knew that. Watching him now made that difficult to accept.

“Brian was always trying to get me to meet new people. He said that me only trusting him was unhealthy, and that it was a recipe for a toxic relationship.” Tim swallowed roughly. His eyes were hidden under his hair. “And what did I do when the only person I had was losing his mind? I had to watch. We couldn’t involve anyone else in that mess. If you stare into the darkness, it doesn’t blink first, Jessica.”

Jess’s mouth fell open, and the words in her mind spilled like a wave. “I knew how to cope with this,” she said. “I knew because I had a normal life before college that I could use as a comparison. I never- I never woke up with mysterious injuries or grew up in a hospital or hid myself behind a camera. So I’m- I’m just not going to let the two of you let all of that become your form of a normal-life.”

Tim didn’t raise his head, so Jess continued. “My mother’s family was Jewish, and my father was Catholic. I grew up on both, but I felt closer to my mother’s traditions when I lived with my father after their divorce. I played soccer and took painting classes for ten years.”

Legends of water demons with flowing mouths drifted through her mind. The pipes in both of their throats had already burst. “Tell me about your family,” she said.

_(“You don't know my feelings better than I do,” Tim says the first time Jay tries his hand at comfort. It’s sharp. Barbed. Tim is an open wound with legs and fists._

_“I’m sorry,” Jay says. His recent actions are salt. Yet, outside of the videos where they only talk in bursts, he says it more than anything else. It’s a staple in his coping mechanisms. A hint at some debilitating mindset that kept him inside. That kept him from being at shootings more. That was only worsened by Alex “Not a Pussy, Macho Man” Kralie’s poor friendships.)_

Jess’s own attempts at comfort are shots in the dark. She and Tim didn't have the same miles behind them. Their history lacked missteps of failure, and the only complex resentment held was Tim’s own self-loathing.

The shot somehow hit.

“I never met my father, Tim said. “My mother was a librarian who I haven't seen in over a decade. I used to think baby birds screamed inside of eggshells, and I like pineapple pizza.”

_(“Clear out the excess so you can focus on what you need to,” Jess’s therapist says. “Along the way you might find the good again.”)_

“We can’t call him Jay,” Tim said, jumping back into a steadier reality like a heart leaping back to its beat. “I’m going to go more insane if I have to think about Jay being…” It took a moment for Jess to notice that clutched to Tim’s chest was her cell phone. “Please.”

“What about Skully?” Jess proposed. Partially on her mind sat older forms of monsters inside of men. Horror had been her own favorite genre. Among the killers in black and white with homicidal undead brothers, she had somehow avoided threads about the monsters in her own life. Just her luck.

“That’s right on the nose,” Tim said, managing a bland tone. “Really?”

“And Masky and Hoodie weren't?” Jess scoffed. “Simple nicknames are Twitter culture, Timothy.”

As Tim’s body regained it’s normal defiant stance, and he returned from behind his eyes, Jess peered down the hall. Alex wasn’t dousing the hardwood with gasoline, but Jay was locked up in the bathroom.

Tim still walked like he favored one leg. Jess noticed that too. Her mind was either sinking, or she was falling out of sync with her own body. The sudden shift of her thoughts didn't even jolt her. For once, she let Tim take the lead.

Odd memories played by faster than the moment. Alex had his feet kicked up on her coffee table and was letting Jay’s upset ramblings rise a little too loud over the low music. Jay smiled when she turned up an MCR song on the radio. He was showing her the lines her girlfriend was set to deliver, in all of their terrible, cringey glory-

Tim barged through the door with unexpected desperation, and Jay’s named rung against her ears. The pitch of his voice finally splintered.

Wet air blew against her face, drifting in through the open window. She had moved her bottles off of the windowsill to refill them, that's why they hadn't heard Jay knock any over. The condensation on the mirror had nearly rinsed it clean, but Jess could see the figure of a man in a mask drawn in black lipstick. It had been Amy’s. The lips it now painted were an imitation of Tim W's doppelgänger.

“Shit,” Jess whispered, before the world slammed back into place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We stan a dissociating queen.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


	8. Chapter Eight: Soothsayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 01010111 01100001 01110010 01100100

_[A tunnel of static focuses in on a white mask with black-rimmed eyes and blocky teeth. Binary text spills across the bottom of the screen, and stretches upwards until the image disappears.]_

_01001001 00100000 01010011 01000101 01000101 00100000 01010111 01001001 01010100 01001000 00100000 01001110 01000101 01010111 00100000 01000101 01011001 01000101 01010011 00100000 00001010_

_[An old shot of Jay with his camera breaks up the waves of static. He is holding his camera up the mirror. The text screams over the footage.]_

_01010100 01001000 01000101 01011001 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01001101 01001001 01001110 01000101_

_[Similarly dated footage of the masked man shows him leaning towards the screen. Then, Jessica’s tired face is in the doorway of her hotel room. Then, the shot of Tim and Brian carrying Jessica out of the hotel is played.]_

_01010100 01001000 01000101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000101 01001100 01001111 01001110 01000111 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01001101 01000101 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 00100000 01000011 01000001 01001110 00100111 01010100 00100000 01010100 01000001 01001011 01000101 00100000 01010100 01001000 01000101 01001101 00100000 01000110 01010010 01001111 01001101 00100000 01001101 01000101_

_[The footage of Tim looking up to see Jay’s body plays. A similar scene of the man who is not Jay interacting with an unconscious Jessica plays after. It cuts out to white numbers against a darkened view of Rosswood.]_

_00001010 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01000001 01000111 01000001 01001001 01001110 00100000 00001010_


	9. Wires - The Neighborhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he said help me kill the president  
> I'd say he needs medicine  
> Sick of screaming let us in  
> The wires got the best of him  
> All that he invested in goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE DELAY!!! I was struggling with the last segment because the topic is tough to do justice. Ill add the warning at the end of the chapter, please read them if you have any potential triggers.  
> Also, thank you all so much for the lovely comments!!!!!! Y'all are too sweet I'm dying.
> 
>  
> 
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ

Straight to hell. That was where the investigation was going. 

The room was dark, as it had been for years now. A thick, oppressive fog had settled over Jess’ humble little home and seeped like winter air into her skin. Even though the sharp light cutting through the ashen day brightened the room, Jess only saw in tones of grey.

She had moved here for a fresh start. Yet, there was only so much that could be done to liven a corpse. Color bled away with time. Water, the universal solute, washed it away quicker, and after years of tears shed, she was a salt-abused, bleached pale boat still sailing across static.

Jess shook her head. Half of an atmosphere was the mindset brought into it. She imagined orange blooming behind her eyelids, and inhaled the damp air. The clock face lacked eyes to watch her. Only time presented itself. 12:05 PM.

“He might be back at Rosswood,” Tim muttered from beside her.

Jess thumbed the chip in her baseball bat’s handle. “We need to look for him before he does anything. We’re better off splitting up to cover more ground.”

Tim made a noise low in his throat- something like a huff of agreement getting caught up in a growl.

Jess did not want to pry. Whether they remembered or not, Jay and Tim had known eachother since college. They had miles behind them, and bullets and rug burns. Jess couldn't say Tim’s amalgamation of feelings didn't make sense either.

If someone posted her medical records for the sake of their amteur detective work and then went berserk over one simple omitted tape, she’d be pretty conflicted about having to look after him again too. If that same person had been the only person she could trust for over a year, she’d been even more conflicted.

(Although calling it all amature and petty would be a disservice to Jay. He still had some soul to him, even towards the end of his turn in the Operator masochistic game, didn’t he? Jess could not say that she would have called out to Alex as he pointed a gun at her. She had gotten out easily, partially because of Jay’s own misguided recruitment of Tim.)

There was also something to be found in the fact that Tim could barely stand to mention Brian by name, if at all. She remembered him even less. Tim knew the past decade far better than Jess. For him, Jay was a more surface-level wound some internal consequences yet to be fully seen, but Brian was some unknown thing below the skin. Simmering, messy grief and dry, malignant grief- a heavy-hitting combination. How was Tim still standing?

A guilty part of Jess was grateful for her own numbness. She had lost two lovers and a best friend. Yet all she felt was echos of remorse.

Tim rose to his feet, padding around her kitchen like a plotting lion. He had the drk mane of hair, and all he needed was a facial scar. Jess watched him intently. She wanted to believe he wasn’t poised to strike, but the hunch of his shoulders carried a promise.

“We can’t exactly put up missing posters for a man in a mask,” Jess said. “Besides, he may be acting calm now, but we haven’t seen what he’s capable yet. I- if he turns out to be like Jay ended up-" 

Tim’s mouth settled into a puckered wince. “What would we even put on it?” He laughed in low, mirthless pop. It sucked something out of the air.

 _Depressed firecrackers_ , Jess’s nonsense brain supplied. For whatever reason, she looked back down the hallway. “Tim-”

“Have you seen this man? Lanky, blue-eyed, doesn’t bite- yet. Just fucking stares at you until you-”

“Tim!” Jess kept her shout cloaked by the rasp of a whisper.

He looked up at her, eyebrows scrunched together, and followed the path of her eyes. “Oh,” he said.

Jay- Skully- stood in the middle of her hallway, head once again cocked to one side and hands clutching a camera. It’s blinking red light was his simple greeting. The hood he wore up was knocked down to reveal hair that fell at his shoulders.

Jess was on her feet again. The energy in her chest was back again. “Stay here,” she said to no one, and left.

 

* * *

 

 

This thing destroyed people. Tim had added Jay’s theories to their documents- one of which proposed thar Operator fed on negativity. It was always showing up at the lowest points for them, after all.

The changes brought on were only for the worst. Alex, who thought the sun revolved around his ass, had only become more self-centered. He nailed his hands to cross and it martyrdom. The enthusiastic boy who talked for hours about symbolism and snotty indie music fed his friends to a monster.  

_(“You missed one,” Tim wheezes. He’s crying so hard it cuts through that blood drying on his cheeks. That’s his superpower, though. He can do it silently.)_

Brian was friends with everyone on campus. He nudged the people around him in the right directions. It was his condition that made him so controlling- it ground him down until there waw nothing. That same thing made Tim more violent, made Jay trust people even less, made Jess-

Jess wouldn't let it destroy her too.

_(“Toughen up, Jay,” Alex says. His friend is crying with a snotty nose and a blabbering mouth. Alex punches his shoulder. “It’s no big deal.”_

_Jess is standing nearby, shaking and muddy. Amy looks at her apologetically. ‘I’m sorry,’ her eyes say. ‘You know how he is.’_

_“We have to get up early tomorrow!’ Alex insists “You can stay here with her if you want! Jesus, just-”)_

She bought comfort foods first- cream and lox, cheese raviolis, vegetable dumplings, and then tossed in a few practical items. It would go over her budget for the next two weeks, but Jess had been saving up money for years now…. They deserved it.

What type of breakfast did Tim like? Probably not the sugary crap- she just tossed in a big box of oat cereal. Then again, he wouldn't have had much of it growing up in a mental hospital, would he? Jess added a box with a cartoon character vouching for its taste, right by the milk and eggs.  

Tim only looked more bewildered after she finished packing away her groceries and pulled out a vase. It was incredibly gaudy looking, brightly colored as it was. Bird of paradise, calla lilies, chrysanthemum, daffodil, daisy, freesia, gladiolus… Her eyes strained to take in all of the colors, but they cut through the fog.

_(“Seth, babe, why so many flowers?” Sarah eyes that explosion of color facing her. Black hair is fanned around her on the pillow of her hospital bed. She now has a scars on a shapley hip from the joint surgery._

_“Because you deserve it! This place is so friggin’ gloomy,” he insists. Fluorescent lights consume the surface of his glasses. “And fuck you, princess, that’s why.”_

_“Not in a hospital bed.”)_

Jess smiled at Tim, who had half-heartedly tied Jay back up. “We deserve it,” she whispered.

“Why so many though?”

“Too much is color is better than none,” Jess said. It was a valid point- her house was done up in cheap browns and greens. “Plus I’m indecisive.”

Tim’s dark eyes glittered faintly. If only for the moment, he seemed amused. It faded away with a heartbeat. Tim jerked his head to the side, gesturing to Skully. “What are we doing about him? We both need to sleep.”

“I can watch him tomorrow,” Jess said. “We could tie him up during the night. He has to sleep at some point. His alter ego isn’t a superhero” She shifted through the bags for a few boxes, and set them down on the counter in the open.

“Oatmeal?” Tim looked from Jess to Skully. Skully was observing his own hands, swaying on the couch slightly. “I guess if we have to force-feed him anything, that works.”

Jess fiddled with the boxes. “Hey, Tim, can I ask you some stuff? About your… alter ego? It might help us take care of Jay.” She reaffirmed her own voice. The worst he could say was no.

"Wish I had anything to tell you,” Tim said dryly. “The only time I remember being behind it was when Brian and I- you know.”

Jess could sense Skully watching them with interest. “The only thing you remember is failing to save me,” Jess finished for him, hesistantly. The cold settled back into her stomach. “But I’d probably be dead if you didn’t try again.”

Tim scoffed. Her kitchen was beginning to smell like nicotine from his clothes alone. “I really don’t want to be mad at you either, but you’re getting back into all of this, knowing it can’t be fixed- is that a coconut?”

“I’m indecisive,” Jess restated. “I think I’m supposed to keep it in the fridge.”

Watching the entries had been a trip on its own. One of her only coherent thoughts came when Alex pointed a gun at her in Rosswood; _Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life._

“When wake Jay back up,” Jess began, "then I’ll quit. It’s better for everyone around us.”

Tim’s eyes darted to the side. Towards Skully, and then towards the kitchen window. He could remember the seven years Jess was missing. The years between the last entry and now weren’t any clearer in her mind. A disgusting part of Jess was happy he had chunks gone too. That way they were in the same boa _t._

 _I will not compare our life stories. It isn’t fair._ One day, Jess had woken up and realized that she hadn’t been doing anything for the past decade. She wasn’t getting younger, she was working the same job, she didn’t have anyone outside of work in her life... Jess had taken extra sleeping pills the night after to ebb off her panic.

Maybe if she had done that post-binge session, she’d have convinced herself it was all a dream.

“Why didn’t you delete Jay’s YouTube?” Jess asked.

Tim ran his nicotine-stained fingers through his hair. “This is gonna sound incredibly selfish, but… I wanted to keep it online. It could pass as an art work or whatever… and I didn’t think I could cope without something proving to me I wasn’t completely insane.”

“You destroyed the tapes though.”

Tim’s hands settled in the roots of his hair. He yanked it harshly before dropping it. “Yeah, I know,” he muttered.

“Uh, hy don’t you go get the stuff you need from your house. If you... haven’t sold it yet,” Jess said. “You can use my shower if you want. You’re, uh, starting to smell, bud.”

“Thanks,” Tim drawled. His gratitude for the change in subject was unspoken. “I still don’t need a change of clothes. I keep my suitcase in my car, so if you really need me I can-”

“ _Timothy_ , I can watch over Jay.” Jess crossed her arms. “All he’s done so far is go for a walk.”

“And if he decides to do something else?” Tim was pacing again. He met the vacant eyes watching them for a split second as he looked around. “Jay’s assessment of what is reckless and what isn’t is shit, smart as he was- is…?”

“You said it yourself, Skully isn’t Jay,” Jess said. She touched her cheek thoughtfully. “It’s like being asleep, isn’t it? Prolonged identity dissociation?”

“This thing kept as alive to spread it’s disease.” Tim winced. Somehow their conversations always curled back to… “If Ja- Skully is his new favorite, well-”

“-Well, he hasn’t tried to kill anyone.” _Yet_. “He hasn't said enough to imply he thinks murder is a cure for Operator sickness.”

Tim scrubbed his face. “Fine. I need to pick up more contact solution anyways. I’ll be back by tonight.”

 

* * *

 

 

_sooth·say·er /ˈso͞oTHˌsāər/_

_noun:_

_a person supposed to be able to foresee the future._

_Synonyms: seer, oracle, augur, prophet/prophetess, sage, prognosticator, diviner, fortune teller, crystal gazer, clairvoyant, psychic_

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Of course.” Jess sighed at the video. ‘ _Soothsayer_ ,’ the title read. “Encryption. At least I can look up a translator for binary code." 

Brian was turning in his grave.

She drummed her fingers on her thigh. "How'd you get into totheark’s channel though? And I know you’re the one who made it. There isnt anyone else left to ward them off so spectacularly."

Skully slid his spoon under his mask. The bowl was balanced in his lap so he could hold his camera, and the smell of oatmeal wafted through the living room. So far he had barely moved while untied.

“Maybe you are a superhero if you can see the future.” Jess mused. “I think clairvoyance would be a more fitting power for Tim. Then again, he has enough stress to deal with. All of these damn symbolic titles.”

Jess shifted into autopilot while copying the ones and zeros into a translator. Tomorrow she had a too-long shift at work that she was not looking forward to.

She really did need a new job. One with a more flexible schedule. Though, there wasn’t much to put on her resume. Jess’ experiences were not exactly character-building. _Ask my friends! I can't say their names without wanting to cry, and those are only my second-hand feelings!_

Shaking her head to clear the thoughts, Jess entered the final digits. The words appeared with a twitch. She squinted at them. _‘I SEE WITH NEW EYES’_ She glanced at Skully. He was staring in the way Jay never did.

_'THEY ARE MINE THEY BELONG TO ME YOU CAN'T TAKE THEM FROM ME NOT AGAIN’_

“Do you have anything else to say?” Jess’ hands were painfully cold. She wrung them together. Skully craned his neck forward, blinked his eyes, and nodded.

 

* * *

 

 

Jess touched Skully’s crude drawings with her fingertips. Tim’s masked face was scrawled across the notepad paper. By it were a few binary numbers. ‘MASK,” her computer screen read.

"Really?” Jess said. Her mirror was still decorated by a similar image. She bit into the inside of her bottom lip. Skully had grabbed Tim’s face- was that why?

The next page was covered in eyes, all pointed at a camera. Heavy lead lines filled in the gaps. “ _See with your third eye,_ ” Jess muttered.

A thought crossed Jess’ mind. She had moved it while sorting the groceries, but- the dirt-covered cardboard was fixed on top of her fridge. Tim had buried memories in place of a body.

Jess dumped the contents onto the table. “What have we got here? Wait- sorry if that was condescending. You’re not a baby.”  

Skully’s turned his camera to the coffee table. Jess could remember Jay always hiding behind his camera, or his hat, or whatever thing would enable him to avoid eye contact. It was a relief to have his eyes off of her again.

Jess tucked Jay’s knife into the waistband of her jeans. It was clean of Alex’s blood. Hadn’t Jay lost it twice? Jess had never seen him with a gun- And she was losing herself again.

She picked up the tape. Tim had left Jay’s apology at the grave sight. Reminding Skully of it couldn’t possibly hurt. “Are you going to film the film?” Jess teased.

It rang hollow on Skully. It wasn’t as if his grave had responded to her.

She lifted the tape in front of him. “Do you even vaguely remember any of the crap on these?”

Skully’s bowl of oatmeal slid from his lap, onto the floor. He ignored the clatter. His fingers peeled at something on the back of the tape- Jess moved to pull away- but Skully was already holding a slip of paper.

Jess plucked it from his hands without resistance. It was folded neatly. The writing inside was barely clear enough to make out. She picked out the ‘Dear Jay,’ at the top, and scanned over it a few more times, and-

Jess had read a suicide note before. Some asshole in highschool had passed around his ex-girlfriend's. Her eyes acted before her mouth cursed him out. The intent of the letter had been subtexutual, but the wording left a bad taste in her mouth for weeks. 

The same rotten flavor spread across her tongue now.

Tim had said he was moving to where Jay was back when he had thought Jay was dead. _Up_ where Jay was. It hadn’t just been a spotty lie.

Jess’ heartbeat pulsated throughout her body. She could sense Skully moving around her, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Jess had almost lost someone else. Tim’s death could have very well occurred without so much as a blip on her radar.

Was that why he had been checking in less? To create a lukewarm distance between them? Head spinning, Jess stood up. People planning- they gave things away. Her head snapped to Skully. “Where are the pictures?” she breathed.

It wasn't funny to see Skully take a step back. The itchiness of laughter danced in her chest. Those pictures had mattered so much to Jess and she had lost them! _God_.

Skully stepping forward wasn’t funny either, but she laughed anyways. Jess laughed when he touched her arm, and she only laughed harder when he threw his arms around her.

It was all just so very hysterical

At some point, the laughter blurred into sobbing. Skully held on tightly. Pressing her face against his shoulder muffled the cries.

Jess missed the knock on her door. It’s gradual rise into pounding did not even rival the thumping in her chest.

“Jess! JESS!”

Tim would kick down the door if he thought a friend was in danger. The way he had yelled after Jay in Keller Hall had been proof enough for how much he cared, but he proved it time and time again. Countless times over.

 _He checked on me one last time, and I threw it all back in his face._ “I’m here!” Jess' voice cracked on the shout. The doorknob instantly stopped jiggling. She stuffed the note into her pocket, and the box went back up on the fridge.

"Have you been crying?” Tim said a moment later, after she had unlocked the deadbolt. He eyed Skully first, but like always, he scanned her face for any sign of something without making eye contact.

“I had a sad song playing,” Jess lied. Her own mind was singing to her that she had not brought up his scars. It was better to leave him alone about his past, right?  He was owed that much-

“Jess?”

She paused. “Sorry... I- uhm- spaced out. Did you get your stuff?”

Tim patted the backpack hanging off of his arm. “Enough to stay for a week. I don’t really own that much.”

Jess’ smile felt too tight. “I don’t have that much space in my guest room anyways. Uh- Skully seems to like Jay’s camera.”

“Unsurprising,” Tim grunted. Jess let him slip past her, all too aware of how he stalked forward like a stray dog.

The old Jess, from what her new iteration remembered, wouldn't have let a friend in that situation walk away. She would have marched after him, sat him down, and- and- Jess was barely an echo of that. She couldn’t slip into an old role so easily.

In a daze, Jess sat back down on her couch. Skully hung over her shoulder to film. They had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mentions of suicidal thoughts and actions. Nothing explicit or detailed though. There's also going to be a few moments that imply unhealthy reliance on seld-medicating. I will leave further warnings if anything graphic is written.


	10. Subterfuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falsehood

_[A clip of a river sweeping away unknown wreckage begins. Red text flashes onto the shot.]_

_“YOU THINK YOU CAN PROTECT US?”_

_“LIKE YOUR FRIEND PROTECTED Y̶͇̗͈͚̩̝̳͑͆̽̓̚͜͠Í̵̛̪͕̳̯͈͙̝̳̽̏̾̊͆̈R̶̛͚̿̍͒͒͆͐̌Z̴̨͓͇͇̤̲̙̮̝͔̑͑͘͠M̴̡̘̝͉͇͎̣͈̞̈́̅̏͐ͅ?”_

_[Brian is gazing up at the peeling wall, wearing a somber mask. Stereoscopic shading takes him away, and his hooded body reappears sprawled back on the dirty floor.]_

_“WE CANNOT OUTRUN OUR CHOICES”_

_[Tim is panting n his knees at Keller Hall. The blood on his skin is highlighted by the filter, and slowly, the red spreads out to consume the screen. White text contrasts it.]_

_“HEROES DO NOT EXIST”_

_“ALL WILL DROWN WITHOUT THE ARK”_


	11. Chapter Eleven: Blood - The Dear Hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is there villainy, inside of me?  
> In search of worth, have I burnt the Earth?  
> There's no passion in being passive  
> And no inaction can bring an answer  
> So for you,  
> I am a killer!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lesbian cryptid found dead in Miami.  
> So it's been... a few months.  
> Originally I was just gonna crank out a long TAZ fic and then hop back into writing this sweet self-indulgent thing, but wouldn't you know, procrastination killed the writer! Oops.  
> I had this chapter sitting in my drafts for a while and I just felt too guilty to proofread. So here's a long overdue chapter where two dysfunctional people try to keep an investigation going!  
> And I know I don't owe it to anyone to force myself to write, but I love writing, and I love you guys! I hope you enjoy this chapter! 
> 
> PS: sorry if my formatting is different AO3 updated and my little rat writer editing tab spaces differently now. I'll see what I can tweak as I go.

_ Jess is back on her college campus, leading Seth and Alex around. They’re a bit of a packaged deal: cousins separated by high school, now peers in the same college town. Jess was only close to Seth, but Alex’s conceitedness was endearing in a funny sort of way.  _

_ “You already have homework for your film class?” Jess finds herself asking.  _

  _Alex rolls his eyes. “Just to practice framing. Jay and I partnered up, that’s why I’m the interviewer and he’s the reporter.”_

  _Jay trails behind Alex, like he always does. His eyes follow Alex’s feet. When Jess looked back at him, he nearly dropped his camera._

_ “Hm,” Seth says. He wears a sort of pouty smile that makes Jess’s heart flutter. “My class got assigned to practice filming angles.”  _

  _Jess isn’t aware of it, but suddenly there’s another girl standing by them. She has dark hair that falls neatly around her face. Her Beatles t-shirt squeezes her skinny frame, and shorts exaggerate the curves of her thighs. Looking at her reawakens the internalized misogyny that tells Jess she’s not like other girls, but she stomps it down before it can poison her thoughts._

  _“Jay Merrick,” the girl says, eyeing him up. She passes over him in favor of Alex. “And Alex Kralie? You followed me to college?”_

  _Jay looks like he’s being held at gunpoint, but Alex only laughs. “Like we’d want to breathe the air you pollute, Reid,” he says._

  _She rolls her eyes. Her fingers loop into a leather, paw-shaped pendant hanging off of her long neck. “Just don’t copy my major.”_

  _“Let me guess, Sarah, nursing?” Alex drawls._

  _Sarah sniffs. “_ Music,” _she insists. “I changed from nursing last year.”_

  _Ah, so she’s older than them. Jess thinks she’s pretty- her attitude seems to be more of act than anything. Though, Seth is already beaming at Sarah. She’s returning it with neatly raised brows and fawning lashes._ There go my chances, _Jess thinks._

  _“I love the Beatles!” Seth says. His pouty smile is broken up by a full grin. “Alex is always getting on my case about it. He says I should listen to ‘real music.’”_

  _Sarah’s curled smile makes her lips pop. “Sounds like Kralie, acting as of he didn’t have a mullet until the last half of junior year.”_

  _Everyone is laughing now, even Jay. Alex looks at him indignantly. They can’t help it- it’s amusing to imagine the man who presented himself like a sophisticated god as a greasy teenage boy. His sneers would have been even funnier if he had braces._

_ It’s even harder to imagine him with his throat cut open, but suddenly he’s on the floor, bleeding out. Sick hiccuping garbles replace his words.  _

_ Jess gasps and stumbles back, but the other bodies fall around her. Sarah’s hair is crusted to her face by blood. Seth’s muscles are twisted into knots underneath splitting skin. Jay is holding the hole in his torso, looking up at Jess with black-rimmed eyes. The way his teeth grimace, stretching his skin, resemble a skeleton. _

_ Jess looks away- which leaves her finding the hole where her heart should be.  _

_ “Don’t you miss us?” Seth’s body moans. His mouth doesn’t move, sounds just come out from the gaping chasm. It brings Jess’ terrified tears down.  _

_ “Of course I do!” Jess insists, but the heads all crack up and turn to look at her. She fumbles around, scrambling to leave to lake of blood rapidly pooling around her, but she falls to her knees instead.  _

_ Jess looks up when Tim’s sobs reach her ears. They’re in the same position, but his hands hover over a familiar, ugly hat. The mask on his face broken by hairline cracks. _

_ “Tim?” Jess whispers.  _

_ He looks up, and the mask falls off. It’s so much worse underneath. His eyes are yawning, bloody holes, and his lips have been hacked off. He’s been carved like a pumpkin. _

_ Jess screams at the ghoul, and suddenly  _ she’s clawing at her own sheets. Instead of blood gluing her clothes to her skin, it’s sweat. 

“Jessica!” Tim burst through her door, wild and tousled, eyes blown wide, and still in his skull.. “Are- are you okay? I heard-” 

“-Just dreams,” Jess wheezes. She felt herself reaching for the bottle of pills in her nightstand. 

“Oh.” Tim’s breath stuttered out of his nostrils. The red rimming his eyes wasn’t blood, and the odor of nicotine clinging to his clothes wasn’t old, either.

“They happen.” Jess’ hand fell back at her side. The muscles holding her together felt too loose where they weren’t too tight. “I… do you want to sit with me?” 

Another shot in the dark landed a hit. Tim shuffled over with his head bowed. His heavy boots thumped softly against the wooden floor, rattling the room.. He kept his distance from the end of Jess’ bed.

“Didn’t you buy tea?” Tim asked. His back was to her, but she could feel him swallow. 

“I can make some if that’s what your asking.” Jess moved her legs over her sheets. She had three dozen deliveries to make later today. Deliveries that could wait.

Tim shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll-” 

“You’ll help me make some tea for both of us,” Jess finished for him.

 

* * *

 

Tim went to smoke on the porch.

It was only fair that of they weren’t going to have coffee, he could trade in one bad habit for another.

Tim squinted at the kettle on the stove when he came back in to wash his hands.  “Microwaving it just isn’t the same,” Jess told him. Tim rolled his eyes and went out for another cigarette. 

Jess set out two mismatched mugs for them, and Tim sat down across from her. She watched him pour himself an overly generous amount of sugar. It kept him from making eye contact. 

“Were you up all night?” Jess asked, noting that she’d need to refill her sugar.

“He’s asleep, if that’s what you were going to ask.” 

“It wasn’t.”

"Well, I wasn't expecting him to still be human enough to sleep." The bitterness from Tim's tea had escaped into his voice. "He certainly didn't do much of it while he was alive."

"That's a symptom of our disease," Jess muttered. "Or a symptom of the paranoia caused by the disease."

Tim rubbed his hands. Jess watched him wash them three more times before he seemed ready to articulate words again.

“Totheark responded to Skullys video,” Tim eventually grunted, neutral as water on the table of acids and bases. Jess barely prided herself for the ridiculous comparison.  “They've upgraded from ominous wording to vague threats.” 

“It beats having to decode it,  I guess.” Jess sipped her tea. She spoke over the lip of her mug. “It’s also under new management after all.”

Tim stared into his own soupy mess of a drink. Perhaps the clots of sugar would whisper answers to him. “If anyone had enough moxy to keep up that channel, it’s Sarah. She was all bark and no bite, but Seth was a bit of a pushover.” 

“Was he?” Seth’s white-lensed glasses passed through Jess’ mind.  _ This thing brings at the worst in people.  _

Tim didn’t quiet smile. “Bri- someone told me that the most hardcore thing he ever saw Seth do was get through a debate about banning kill shelters while bawling.” 

“He got Lola from one of those,” Jess added. It was  _ something _ she knew. Sharing it felt like a brag.

“He was nice, from what I remember.” Tim’s eyes hesitantly lifted to meet hers. “I can see why you liked him.” 

“Nice to know,” Jess muttered. 

“Do you remember that time you stood up to Alex during one shooting? When you nearly punched him in the face?” 

Jess shook her head. “I didn't know I was at his throat too.”

“I really don't think you were. You've always had more will to act,” Tim said. He hesitantly sipped his slushy tea, only to gag.

Unconsciously, Jess’s mouth twitched. “More than you?” Tim had been the one to end Alex’s reign of terror. Then again, that was only when the cards read ‘ _ kill or be killed.’ _

“You restarted this investigation.”

Jess looked to her tea. The steamy swirls resembled a dragon’s breath. A trove ot secrets stewing beneath the milky surface were its hoard. 

Tim grimaced, hard enough to rival Skully’s mask in her peripheral. “I didn't mean it like that- just- you were the one knocked Skully out when I couldn't?” 

Jess sighed. Tim turned away when she tried to make eye contact. “I don't know who I was before. Well, all of this is kinda making me feel like I can actually do something?”

“Go on,” Tim said softly.  

“The past years have been…” Jess clenched her fingers.. The heat of her mug seared into her palms. “Everything feels fine when you're asleep. If you're not having nightmares.” 

_ (Jessie is pumping her arms up and down against the hardwood. The ache is like fire curling into her muscles, but the shouting muffled by her bedroom walls eggs her on. Jessie is going to join the military once she’s big and strong. Then her family can afford a divorce. Or a new house. The good memories she’s bottled up in her brain play as her workout soundtrack.) _

Tim pushed his tea away. His fingers were knobby, and decorated with musician’s callouses. Jess’ aunt had the same ones. She’d play her guitar on the street corner and donate all of her earnings to charities.

“Jess?” This time, Jess’ head snapped up. Tim’s hand was on her arm. 

“Sorry... I keep…” 

Tim’s brows furrowed. “You don’t need to apologize. Does it happen often?” 

“My brain wanders sometimes,” Jess admitted. “My medication doesn’t help. I have the one we share, my iron supplements, my sleeping pills-”

“Sleeping pills?“ Tim’s subtle frown deepened.

“I tried meditation before. Didn’t help.” Tim’s note passed through her mind. “Uh, they’re personalized. They only work on… me…” 

Tim seemed unimpressed. Jess could always lock her drawer. “Oh…? How often do you take them?” 

“After I get a shower at night. Sometimes before. And when I wake up in the night.”

"That's a lot to the system," Tim said.

Jess shook her head.  “Please don’t start the whole lecture on dependency. I only use them so I can’t get enough sleep for work.  _ Anyways,  _ I need to watch that video.”

"It's just about as pretty as the rest," Tim grunted. After a pause, his neutral expression became watered down by something else. “Jess, look, it’s really nice that you’re letting me stay here, but I’m used to cutting back on expenses-”

Jess stood up with their mugs. Tim was blanching like a corpse. “You’re staying with me whether you like it or not. We’re safer together-”

“Jay and I used to save money by sharing a hotel bed-”

“Wasn’t he rich?”

“ _ Listen,  _ we slept in shifts-” 

“Which was safer, wasn’t it?” Jess glared at Tim. They could not afford isolation anymore. Jess couldn’t afford to lose Tim. “We need each other.”

Tim’s smile was entirely sour. “You have everything you need from me. Skully, a plan, the full story-”

“Where is this coming from? Tim, I need  _ you.” _

“I can’t protect anyone,” Tim said. He twined his knobby fingers together and rested his face against his hands. His unsettling smile disappeared behind them. 

Jess set her hands down on the table, splaying her own fingers and leaning over. She tilted her chin back to add to the height of her scowl. “Tim, we’re supposed to protect each other. That’s what teamwork means. If we want to avoid bringing anyone else into this-”

The knot in her shoulders came loose like a thread snapping. The rope slipped through her fingers with a hissing scream, leaving burning and bloody wounds. “You know that I want you here because you’re my friend, right? I get that I’m being selfish by doing that, but you’re also allowed to tell me if you’re upset. I ramble to you a lot.”

Sunlight breaking through the window with dawn made Tim's eyes seem paler. “Remember how I said you sound like Jay? I think I need Brian right now. Uh, fucked up as that request is.”

The disgusting part of Jess whispered that the two of them were weak for breaking down so often. Talking about his feelings? From what she saw, Tim was as closed off to Jay as he was to her. More so. Opening up was baring his throat. 

That same part of Jess smiled like a wolf. ..  Jess contained the impulse to the back of her mine.  _ Bared teeth mean aggression and leadership.  _ If Jess had her bat in her hands, she’d bash her own head in to kill that voice. 

“I don’t know much about casual behavior therapy-”  _ but if you’re asking permission to open up more in you own words,  _ “but I do know friends are supposed to talk to one another.”

“Never learned that in a mental hospital,” Tim muttered, “That’s what I regret. I let Brian drift off my radar. I figured he just got sick of me, so I didn’t even ask. With Jay, there was so much I wanted to say, I just…”

_ (Tim is trudging through the muddy water. His pant legs being rolled up to his knees has not kept them dry. His toes find purchase in the slimy river bottom every few steps. “Comfortable up their?” he grumbles to Jay.  _

_ Jay doesn’t move on his back other than to adjust his camera. If it falls into the river, Tim won’t be too disappointed. The way Jay would freak out might worry him, though.) _

Jess nodded, egging Tim on. 

“Everytime I tired I didn’t know where to start. It was- is- easier to just keep quiet.”

Tim’s side of it didn’t inherently mean that it was the same for Jay, but… the issue seemed rooted in who they were as people. The guy who dropped his gaze whenever people raised their voices and the guy who grew up inpatient facility couldn’t have been a perfect team. 

_ (“I mean it!” Jay insists. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.” _

_ Tim continues to shake his head, mouthing  _ ‘no’  _ over and over again.  _

_ Jay remains unconvinced. He’s never been the brazen man, but in that instant, something strikes him. He grabs Tim’s face, halting the denial. “I-I… I think you’re pretty great,” Jay says.  _

_ Tim shoves him off violently.) _

Regardless, that particular part of Tim’s past wasn’t any of her business.

_ (For the past week, Jay had allotted Tim some breathing space. Under Tim’s cold mask- an ironic metaphor, Jay realized- anger was likely festering. _

_ Jay knew Tim did not like physical contact. That was on Jay for overstepping the clear boundaries that Tim had laid out. He left beats in their actions for Tim to go smoke alone as some weak attempt at compensation. He will never be good at confrontation, and this proves that. _

_ So when they’re both on the ground gulping up air, Jay doesn’t expect Tim to grab him by the shoulders and yell at him for his recklessness, or the hug that comes after. _

_ With Tim there’s a lot of mixed signals. The man is a flashing sign written in dead languages. The only comprehensible warning states ‘Do not touch,’ in bolded English. Even when their lips start meeting, Jay is terrified that something will get lost in translation. _

_ “I don’t want to be alone,” Jay says. _

_ It remains a thought that is so much more than that.) _

 

* * *

 

“What do you think this means Skully?” Jess didn’t look up from the tab she was browsing “They’re probably talking about Tim.” 

Skully continued to film her desk hourglass. The stain on her carpet was already forgiven, but one eye was kept on him at all times. Even if that eye was more interested in the psychedelia-style videos one of her exes kept making.

Jess peered down the hall. Tim had been watching television, and now the door to her guest room was shut. Jess pushed herself off of her bed to investigate. 

He wouldn’t do anything in there, would he? She was home and they were only separated by thin drywall. Straining her ears from her room, Jess could hear something faint.

For a moment, the walls were filled with porcelain and moths. Jess crossed the distance to press her ear against the door. The sound had faded only for something new to start. 

Tim played softly. Jess could imagine him sitting in the corner of the bedroom, huddled up with an instrument. Had he brought it here last night? There were a lot of things she’d probably hadn't noticed then.

He was alive at least. Jess had to focus on only the sound of his voice to make out any words. Every few chords, his words dropped below a murmur. 

_ ‘-But I've been killing myself all along _ __  
_ Had I done my best to protect innocence? _ _  
_ __ Or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?’

Tim had a worn voice. When he sang, honey and lemon juice leaked through the plaster. Jess liked the swinging shards of jazz, or the incoherence of metal, but Tim's sandpaper hums were… nice. 

And she was intrusive. 

Jess sighed, swiping her hair out of her eyes. She softly rapped her knuckles against the door. “Tim?” 

There was a beat of silence. A ukulele chord rang out before a soft clatter. The door opened a moment after. No light was on.

“Were you just sitting in the dark?” Jess squinted at Tim. 

“No…” Tim focused on where Skully was padding down the hall, filming the patterns on the wallpaper. “Did you need something?” 

“I had an idea I don’t think you’re going to like.” Jess flattened her lips. 

Tim aged in front of her. “Oh?” 

“You know how we went to Rosswood, and we found… Skully?” she asked. 

“And how you lost two days when you went alone? And how many other times all three of us got close and personal with death by walking into those woods?”

Jess steadied herself. “I’m not an idiot, Tim. Don’t insinuate that I haven’t actually thought this out.”

“Go on then,” Tim sighed. His scowl eased back.

“Maybe if we want to jog Jay’s memories,” Jess began, pointedly meeting his eyes, “we should go back to where he would have lost them.”

Tim was the first to look away. “I’m not saying that’s not a good idea, Jess, but-” 

“Hear me out, okay? It’s far more effective to do things head-on,” Jess said. “So we leave for Keller Hall early- I’m done streaming but there’s still storage on my phone. Jay’s camera seems to be working as well-’ 

She gazed past Tim. The room was less personalized than a hotel. Flowers could brighten it up, if he wanted them. So could pictures- did Tim have any pictures left? 

“If you have another idea, I’m all ears," Jess said. "You know that.” 

Tim remained fixed on Skully. Without moving, he followed him up and down the hall. 

“I’ve sold myself on the idea of figuring it out before I seek out normality again,” Jess said. Something rose up in her throat. “I can do it alone if- if I need to. I’m just. Scared.”

“Whatever you think we need to do is worth trying, I guess,” Tim said, exhaustion missing from his voice. 

“What time should we leave?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My musical plug-ins are gonna gradually get more and more shameless.  
> Speaking of,  
> Fic Playlist: 
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/pv2hffgu69i016sfrnzmqhkt3/playlist/59iOItmDPLH4LLjXNLkOvQ?si=4H4zzphzSaq1K8zYfn01fQ


End file.
